By Michael Palmer
We have long been lead to believe that music, gaming, publishing industries and movie piracy has put a hindrance on sales. But a new study by the London School of Economics suggests that the impact of digital file sharing may have actually improved the industries mentioned above overall sales. The London University researchers looked at sales data and found that business is growing and growing even faster in the online space.
One of the big finding was that the music industry has been growing since 2004 in sales in digital music and has become a significant part of the over industry sales. One of the funny parts about this is that the industry has adopted the file sharing method that was pioneered by sites such as Napster, Pirate Bay and such sites.
Senior lecturer in LSE Department of Media and Communications and study author Bart Cammaerts said, “Contrary to the industry claims, the music industry is not in terminal decline but still holding ground and showing healthy profits.” He also mentioned that “revenues from digital sales, subscription services, streaming and live performances compensate for the decline in revenues from the sale of CDs or records.”
According to Cbc.ca while the study acknowledges that sales have stagnated in recent years, the report points out that the overall revenue of the music industry in 2011 was almost $60 billion US, and in 2012, worldwide sales of recorded music increased for the first time since 1999, with 34 per cent of revenues for that year coming from digital channels such as streaming and downloads.
The industry may not be rapid pace of growth the evidence that sales and revenues has decrease where not proven. The author did also suggest that if a change to adopted the digital environment earlier was done a growth would have been seen much sooner.
If you are looking for more information please click on the link below for the whole research.
LSE-MPP-Policy-Brief-9-Copyright