Posted 11:05 AM by Dave Allen
Didn't see this posted. Apologies if it's a repeat....

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/20020813/gtmusic
/Front/homeBN/breakingnews

POSTED AT 6:24 PM EDT Tuesday, August 13
MP3s not source of music industry woes: Study

By JACK KAPICA
Globe and Mail Update

The record industry has it wrong: Swapping music MP3s is not the cause of
the industry's woes, but it may be the cure.

That conclusion comes from Forrester Research, an emerging-technology
research firm, and flatly contradicts what the record executives are saying.

In fact, Forrester's latest study, released Tuesday, says that consumers
need a "Music Bill of Rights" to protect their right to get tunes over the
Internet.

The five major international record companies, through their trade
organization, called the Recording Industry Association of America, have
been blaming a 15-per-cent drop in record sales over the past two years on
Net-based file-swapping services, starting with Napster.

In reality, other factors led to the drop in revenue, Forrester said: the
economic recession and competition from surging video-game and DVD sales.

"There is no denying that times are tough for the music business, but not
because of downloading," Forrester's principal analyst, Josh Bernhoff, said.
"Based on surveys of 1,000 on-line consumers, we see no evidence of
decreased CD buying among frequent digital music consumers."


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