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The IFTF Blog
Report: Music Pirates Buy More Music
Ars Technica reports that, according to a study conducted by the BI Norwegian School of Management, people who download music from P2P networks actually buy the most music legally, too.
Researchers examined the music downloading habits of more than 1,900 Internet users over the age of 15, and found that illegal music connoisseurs are significantly more likely to purchase music than the average, non-P2P-loving user.
Unsurprisingly, BI found that those between 15 and 20 are more likely to buy music via paid download than on a physical CD, though most still purchased at least one CD in the last six months. However, when it comes to P2P, it seems that those who wave the pirate flag are the most click-happy on services like the iTunes Store and Amazon MP3. BI said that those who said they download illegal music for "free" bought ten times as much legal music as those who never download music illegally. "The most surprising is that the proportion of paid download is so high," the Google-translated Audun Molde from the Norwegian School of Management told Aftenposten.
I'd also like to see the correlation between downloaders and concert ticket sales. My theory is that people who regularly troll P2P networks for new tunes probably go to more shows. Of course, I have no proof, and even if I did, EMI probably wouldn't believe me, either.