The New York Times covers a new study on the impact of illegal downloading on music sales:
"Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates," write its authors, Felix Oberholzer-Gee of the Harvard Business School and Koleman S. Strumpf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
It's a lot easier for the record companies to blame illegal file sharing for downwards spiraling sales than plain-vanilla CD piracy and a lack of interesting new music. In the 90's, they benefitted from a rising economy and folks buying CDs to replace music they already owned on tape or vinyl. I'm sure they patted themselves on the back for their genius, but now that the tide is running against them they've chosen to use file-sharing as a scapegoat rather than take a hard look at their own business.
