the numbers...
* 95% of music is illegally distributed - legal music sales are $6 Billion in the USA.
* so $6 billion = 5% of total music consumption
* that would mean if 100% of the music in the hands of consumers was purchased it would total $120 Billion ($6B x 20 = $120 Billion or 100%).
* so even if piracy could be reduced so that the only 10% of music consumed were purchased annual revenue would be $12 Billion (double what it is now and pretty close to where it was before p2p took hold)
* if piracy were reduced to just the degree where 85% were pirated leaving 15% as legitimate sales would mean $18 billion in legitimate revenue in the USA alone
* just moving the needle from 5% legitimate sales to 15% legitimate sales is a massive game changer... $18 billion in revenue which would be a new peak for recorded music sales
* I don't think anyone needs to argue that legitimate sales would be 120 Billion if piracy we're eliminated - but a quick look at the numbers above and the facts below show that there can be a huge positive change with just a relatively small reduction of piracy...
EDUCATION AND PIRACY PARKING TICKETS... EDUCATION AND PIRACY PARKING TICKETS...
these are the facts:
- music sales began a rapid decline at the introduction of file-sharing
- after ten years of unchecked filesharing music sales have reduced 50%
Music's lost decade: Sales cut in half in 2000s - Feb. 2, 2010
- 1% of torrent content is non-infringing
Survey: Only 1% of Torrents non-infringing • The Register
- 95% of all digitally distributed music is illegal
95% of music downloads are illegal | Music | guardian.co.uk