shouting loudly

The Canadian government commissioned a study of the effects of peer-to-peer MP3 trading on music sales, and it found downloading to be slightly correlated with buying more music.

From my very limited reading, the effect size was small and did not hold for those aged 15 and older. This study is news, though, because it contradicts the industry’s mantra–and findings of some, but not all, of the other studies on this issue–that downloading hurts sales. This study clearly suggests the practice is at least less than damaging.

Read the full report here: The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada. UPDATE: Link credit goes to Excess Copyright, the personal blog of Canadian attorney Howard Knopf.