Report Claims Piracy Doesn’t Affect Music Creation

If the biggest companies in the recording industry are to be believed, piracy is ruining both music creation and of course, sales. According to a newly-released paper by American economist Joel Waldfogel, however, those claims couldn’t be further from the truth. While piracy does have its obvious consequences, harm to music creation isn’t one of them.

Napster is a service that’s been long-referred to as the biggest harm to the music industry, but according to the paper, there’s been no evidence that music creation has slowed down since its release. Without proof sitting in front of me, I’d believe that finding, given that there’s been no noticeable decline in music at all to me. In fact, I discover more music than ever, thanks to services like Last.fm.

There has been one rather significant shift, though. More and more artists are beginning to sell independently, or through an indie record label. This is of course something the biggest companies could do without, but it’s a fact, and seems to be working out well for a lot of artists. In the past couple of years, I’ve purchased music from five different artists straight through their label or websites, and going forward, I’d hope to see that number continue to grow.

An interesting point made is that while the big companies in the recording industry must sell at least half a million albums to break even, indie labels work on far more modest profit margins, and at times only need to sell 25,000 or less. Given this, it almost seems like the big companies will at some point become obsolete. Cheers to that idea!

Similarly, thanks to the Internet there are a million ways to promote one’s content, with the only cost being the time that’s invested in it. Thanks to Youtube, Facebook and more specialized music services such as Last.fm and Pandora, artists have many platforms to promote themselves. Previously, although illegal, labels often paid radio stations to promote their music.