Eric Garland and Will Page of MCPS-PRS Alliance have published a brief study on the effects of Radiohead freely releasing its album. Garland notes in a media report that "the expectation among rights-holders is that, in order to create a success story, you must reduce the rate of piracy – we've found that is not the case."
MCPS-PRS Alliance and Big Champagne Assess the Radiohead Experiment
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Hmm… want to proove me that illegal d
Well… That piece of study is a jewel for a lot of thing.
Now, it says that the illegal torrent was download a lot. Like 1 million. It says that the free version was less used than the torrent. But they got almost 2 millions sales of conventional CD. And they get they show packed full, to get more show for that city.
I think that document is enough to proof that Piracy is not something that can affect damage for 1 sales loss theory. Radiohead get tons of new fans with it, tons of revenue they wouldn’t get from that new distribution technology.
I had saved it on my computer, for further proof of evidence that’s the damage is not an absolute but a relative idea that should be proved by the RIAA on courts. 😉
Thank you,
Jourdespoir
In fact the damage is only for the labels. With piracy artists are gaining popularity for free, popularity which in turn produce revenue for those artists (but not for the labels). As soon as more artists realize that (Madonna already did) they will leave record labels for good.
Artist
But what about the result of piracy on new, independent, unsigned acts who have been fortunate in gaining some national exposure through TV/radio or other means? I myself have been the victim of torrent downloads/piracy of the one track that reached national attention and became highly in demand. Without income from direct sales of those records, I can not support myself as a musician and artist. I have no label and no other funding. I’m completely being taken advantage of by these illegal downloads which cause my own download sales to slump to zero. There is little reason for artists like me to continue putting out material to the general public, it is not valued in a way that allows us to actually survive doing what we do.