Studies on file sharing

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• 02Nov2009 Slate.fr, current affairs webzine Slate's French sister site, points out in this article entitled "Pirates spend more on music" a report by BBC news citing the results of a survey about piracy among more than 1000 people commissioned by Demos researchers. This online poll has found that people who admit downloading music through illegal file-sharing spend nearly twice as much as those who claim they do not and that current price of music files is far higher than what customers are willing to pay. Websites (including peer-to-peer systems and streaming services) visited by music listeners are also explored.

• 2009/09 - A study realized between January and March 2009 in 12 countries among 6500 Internet users by IPSOS Allemagne shows that French Internet users are not the World Champions of illegal downloading. This study also shows that in Germany "pirates are better consumers of "legal" culture than the German Internet users who don't donwload illegally. Sources: tempsreel.nouvelobs.com 21/09/2009 pcinpact.com 21/09/2009 ecrans.fr 22/09/2009

• Another study shows that P2P networks (Vuze) users are the best consumers for Hollywood: « Introducing Hollywood's Best Custormers ». Source: Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc. - 02/06/2009.

• This note realized by M@rsouin presents the principal results of a survey on video consumption (or on audiovisual content consumption in general) on the Internet. We'll take a particular look to the statistic vision of online video consumption. The conclusion of this study: "Those who download videos on PP networks, also are those who buy more DVDs."

• A study conducted in late 2008 by the Norwegian School of Management BI (Norwegian version is here) cited by ars technica on 20Apr2009 shows that "the people who use unpaid downloading have ten times the consumption of paid downloads than those who do not use unpaid downloading".

• A new report (2009) commissioned by the Dutch government, about the economical and cultural consequences of filesharing on music, film and video games industries concludes that illegal downloading has a positif global effect on the economy.

• This study commissioned by the Canadian Ministry of Industry in 2006-2007 finds "no direct evidence to suggest that the net effect of P2P file-sharing on CD purchasing is either positive or negative for Canada as a whole" but that, on the contrary, "among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing"

• This article from news.com explains that a balance between small and big actors of the music market is already being reached thanks to P2P networks.

• This tendancy seems to be confirmed by a 2004 study of D. Blackburn, Ph.d. student of Harvard On-line piracy and Recorded Music Sales. This study, although it doesn't take into account the rise of CD sales in the US for 2004 (after the prices were slightly lowered), is quite acurate on the dynamic of CD sales. A figure page 32 is quite explicit on the fact that the 75% "smaller" artists on the sales scale would absolutely not be affected by downloading, and only the 25% more sold could potentiallt suffer from it.

• Moreover a recent study from UFC and a research laboratory of the Paris XI University on copying habits of French people shows detailled results on the almost null impact of copy on purchasing behaviour.

• These results seem to confirm those from this 2004 study of the Harvard Business School, "The effect of file sharing on record sales - An empirical analysis", that has been criticised since, because it only compared downloading in a given week, with the CD sales data of that same week. Other studies are more pessimistic: the one done in 2003 by the FNAC (if someone can find a link to this study...) based on interviews of many actors of the music industry, shows that on the 15% fall of the French market in 2003, P2P would only be responsible for 2 or 3 of them.

• The Economics M.A. of Eric Boorstin, Princeton University, "Music Sales in the Age of File Sharing" pushes the analysis very far. It concludes that peer to peer would have a negative impact on younger people when it comes to buying CDs, but in the other hand it would have a positive impact on older people, and that both effects put together could result in a neutral effect, if not positive. E. Boorstin also gives

the many figures of discs sales (it's intersting to notice how the turnover doubled between 1983 and 1993 for instance, as well as the life cycles of the different media.) and states the different causes that might be at the origin of the recent fall of CD sales: end of the CD as a medium, last sales of audio tapes, news social habits, artistic choices of the majors less and less risky,...

• A report from the OECD in November 2005, "Contenus numériques haut débit : la musique" sets a very complete picture of the history of the music industry, its economic models, the place of the Internet and peer-to-peer.

«Quoi qu’il en soit, le téléchargement de musique en P2P ne conduit pas tous les utilisateurs à substituer systématiquement ce type d’acquisition aux modes traditionnels de consommation. Il est par conséquent difficile d’établir « le coût du partage illégal de fichiers ». Cette difficulté est reflétée dans les résultats des études sur la question et dans les critiques méthodologiques dont ont pu faire l’objet ces études (faibles taux de réponse, défauts de conception des études, problèmes de définition des modèles pour les travaux empiriques, etc.). Certaines études démontrent que le partage non autorisé de fichiers a un effet négatif sur les ventes de musique, mais d’autres démontrent qu’il a un effet positif ; et d’autres encore concluent qu’il a un impact nul. D’après certains, les utilisateurs substituent le téléchargement à l’achat légal, ce qui réduit les ventes, mais d’autres avancent que le partage de fichiers permet de découvrir certaines musiques avant de les acheter. La plupart des études confirment que ces deux phénomènes opèrent en même temps – selon les utilisateurs : le partage non autorisé de fichiers conduit certains à augmenter leur consommation et d’autres à la réduire.»

• Axée principalement sur la mesure du nombre d’utilisateurs de p2p, dans ses différents pays, ainsi que d’autres mesures purement factuelles (nombre d’utilisateurs partageant, évolution de ce nombre, etc.), cette étude de l’OCDE "Peer to Peer Networks in OECD Countries" semble assez objective. Bien que restant neutre sur l’impact qu’aurait le p2p sur la ""crise"" de l’industrie du disque, elle met en lumière de nombreuses applications commerciales rendues possibles par ces technologies.

• Sur le rapport des artistes (enfin ceux qui ne sont pas manipulés par leur producteur) aux technologies de l’information, une étude du Pew Internet and American Life Project, intitulée "Artists, Musicians, and the Internet", démontre que sur 2755 artistes interrogés, 3% pensent qu’"Internet rendrait difficile de protéger son art contre le piratage ou les utilisation non autorisées", contre 79% qui pensent que ça n’aurait aucun effet (voir p.24 de l’étude). Ils semblent en revanche être nombreux à voir la distribution par Internet comme une source supplémentaire d’opportunités, de promotion voire de rémunération.

• Enfin, afin de prendre un peu de recul historique par rapport aux sanglots des industriels du disque, un remarquable travail de Marc Bourreau (Économiste, maître de conférences à l’ENST, Département EGSH / Department of Economics et CREST-LEI.) et Benjamin Labarthe-Piol, "Le peer to peer et la crise de l’industrie du disque : une perspective historique" démontre que depuis sa création, l’industrie du disque a de nombreuses fois hurlé que "XXXXX va tuer l’industrie du disque" (remplacer "XXXXX" par "le piano mécanique", "la musique à la radio", "la cassette audio", etc.). L’étude explique que si l’industrie n’a jamais disparu c’est parce qu’au bout d’un certain temps elle a toujours fini par s’adapter aux innovations technologiques.

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