Aram Sinnreich thinks it"s time to inject some common sense into the discussion about how much damage Napster-style peer-to-peer file sharing really is doing to the music business.
"As long as they resort to ham-handed scapegoating of consumer behaviors as a way to explain their poor performance," Jupiter Media Metrix entertainment analyst Aram Sinnreich said today, "they"ll never make the steps it takes to evolve this industry."
Contrary to charges that Internet song-swapping is killing the music industry, new research authored by Sinnreich contends experienced online song-swappers are more likely to buy new music than average music fans, not less. The data was culled from a June 2001 survey of more than 3,000 adult online music listeners.
The same research also concludes that other popular computer technologies including broadband Internet access and writable CD drives are measurably sapping music industries revenues. But even with these revenue-draining technologies, the report says, the message is not a simple one.
"Jupiter has ascertained that technologies like file sharing, broadband and CD-writable drives do indeed influence consumers" music spending habits - in both directions," Sinnreich contends in his report, which was obtained by Newsbytes Wednesday. "In essence, such technologies polarize the market."