A new report by an economist called Stan Liebowitz says that both those in the industry who bitch about P2P and those in the online community who defend P2P are wrong in the big 'P2P is bad/good' debate - with both sides choosing stats that support their case over others that are less useful to their agenda. The report follows and disputes recent Havard research that concluded that P2P file sharing had had no impact whatsoever on CD sales.
Liebowitz says there are a number of problems with the pro-P2P Havard research, and that the people behind it failed to release all their data, making it impossible for third parties to properly assess their findings. But he says that at the same time the music industry is wrong to simply blame P2P for all their woes, arguing that record labels were slow to adapt to the arrival of the new internet technologies, and that their attempts to block the new technologies were counterproductive.
The report concludes that there are two facts that are definitely true. One, CD sales are declining and downloading - legal or otherwise - is partly to blame. Two, technology cannot be stopped from developing. Those two facts should drive the record labels' business strategy, Liebowitz argues. Which I think we all knew, but still, good to hear it again.