It’s nice to see one’s views vindicated every once in a while. About 9 months ago, I blogged on my opinion that the drop in music sales was not due to people downloading music across the file sharing networks. The RIAA claims that their sales have been dropping for close to four years now because of the music pirates. I pointed out that the sales of music CDs began dropping when the economy turned bad and we dipped into a recession–hardly something that requires a rocket scientist to figure out. I also pointed out that people were using Napster like crazy before 2000, and music sales were booming then.

Well, a new study–this one, for a change, not paid for by the music industry–has found there there is really no connection between piracy and falling music sales. They closely monitored levels of illegal music downloads and legal music sales, and found that there was no correlation between the two. When illegal downloading spiked, music sales were unaffected–or if there was an effect, it was at a 5000-to-1 ratio, meaning that 5000 people would have to download a song before one person decided not to buy it legally. People who download and don’t buy are people who would not have bought the music anyway. That doesn’t make it legal, or right, but it does show that the RIAA’s claim is bogus and their vehement crackdown is wholly unjustified by the terms they themselves claim.

The RIAA discounts this, pointing to the studies they have done–but their studies are based on surveys, where people are asked about whether they commit crimes or not. The authors of the new study point out that people will not always answer such questions honestly.

And let’s not forget, the RIAA aren’t exactly saints themselves; you should really read this very well-written essay by Orson Scott Card on the subject; the RIAA has, for a very long time, ripped off artists to no end.