If MP3s hurt record sales at all, it's primarily for the bad, overrated artists.
Date:
2003-04-14 04:15:46
From:
anonymous2
Looking at how people generally relate to music and buying albums, I'd say that it's likely that, since high availability of decent copies of music enables you to pick and choose at a greater extent, overhyped artists (i.e. large parts of the the 'pop' world and the derivatives in rock/metal/soul et.c. as well) will probably suffer a loss in sales, while less known musicians might greatly gain from having their work spread.
Those who take an actual interest in what they hear are also likely to buy albums they like when they can, and these people generally don't care for the social bit of listening to the "right" music.
MP3s are likely very bad for markets such as the perpetual feed of thematical songs at every season, and the various collection of recent pop hits.
This is just speculation, of course, but if so, I can see why the industry giants are angry - this gives the smaller labels and the actual artists some leverage in sales - based on content!
