P2P Unite have conducted a survey amongst file-sharers regarding their purchase habits. This is a unique survey, since it is carried out from within the P2P community.
Why is this survey important? Why does it matter if file-sharers buy commercial products, too?
It is important because file-sharers are depicted as a threat to society in the propaganda issued by organisations like MPAA and RIAA. Such organisations justify the persecution of file-sharers by citing severe financial losses on behalf of the companies they represent. If we can show that file-sharing in fact does not entail financial loss to the commercial companies, it follows that the actions taken against file-sharers are, at best, misguided.
The message to the **AA organisations is that file-sharers and customers are one and the same.
The survey concerns how file-sharing affects personal expenses, and focuses on the relationship between downloading files and purchasing products.
The results from this survey suggest that the “harm” done to commercial companies is not so much in terms of financial loss, as in loss of control. Many file-sharers purchase products that they have first discovered through some file-sharing network. We can combine that piece of information with many comments found in posts on file-sharing forums, to reach a preliminary conclusion about the impact of file-sharing. File-sharing may challenge the power that commercial companies are used to wielding. File-sharing help people to discover products that are not heavily promoted by the entertainment industry. In this sense, it may be true that file-sharing is indeed a threat to the companies that the **AA organisations represent. In addition, file-sharing may become a means for artists to free themselves from their dependence on commercial companies.
Please visit
the P2P unite site to read the analysis of this survey, in which 1,122 file-sharers participated during the month the survey was up. The sources for the analysis is available for download and examination.