How much of the decline in sound recording sales is due to file-sharing?

Stan Liebowitz

Journal of Cultural Economics, 2016, vol. 40, issue 1, 13-28

Abstract: Although most studies of file-sharing have concluded that file-sharing has decreased record sales, the extent of the decreased sales often seems uneven. This paper demonstrates that the results are more uniform than previously understood once a consistent metric is used to provide easy comparability across studies. This paper uses the percent of the decline in record sales that is due to file-sharing as a metric to translate the results of the literature into a common framework and then summarizes those results. What has not been previously noted is that the estimates from most studies imply that the impact of file-sharing was sufficient to have caused the entire decline in record sales that occurred from the advent of Napster up to about 2005. A smaller number of studies using post-2005 data indicate that the shift to digital formats may also have contributed to the sales decline that continued after 2005. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Keywords: File-sharing; Piracy; Sound recordings; Music; iTunes; Napster; Z1; O3; L8 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10824-014-9233-2

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