New studies show a correlation between popular musicians and the free P2P publicity they are getting from fans. It turns out that the majorty of those who turn out for concerts are the same people who are sharing the creative works of these artists online. The PRS study showed what we all knew already; that the most shared songs are those at the top of the charts.
“It suggests file-sharing sites are becoming an alternative broadcast network comparable to radio stations as a way of hearing music.” Wow really?
The study also found that the sales of individual tracks in digital format usually involved only a small portion tracks available on an album. Apparently most people don’t want to buy a whole album full of garbage just to get one or two decent songs and now that they don’t have to, they aren’t. But according to the guys who conducted this study, this is caused by people having such a huge variety of choices that they don’t often hear other songs on the album and instead stick to buying tracks they are already familiar with.
On the other hand, they have suggested that those who discover the music by file-sharing are more likely to listen to songs other than those already being promoted by TV and radio, share them with others and create an interest in songs that would otherwise receive little exposure to the market.
It is being suggested that music companies should regard file-sharing sites as broadcasting networks in the same way as radio and TV are.
Source: Blog Pirate | BBC
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