File-Sharing Maybe Not So Good

The organization that represents the interests of the global recording industry said the academics’ report is “theory over reality,” while the Recording Industry Association of America weighed in by saying the report fudges the figures.

The IFPI says live music cannot simply be regarded as the new funding source for artists, supplanting recorded music.

“A look at the most successful live acts of recent years shows that these stadium-fillers are mostly artists who have built their careers over many years through recorded music,” it said.

The RIAA claimed the LSE report’s authors had double-counted large amounts of recorded music business revenues.

“The figure shows numbers for “Recorded Music” and “Publishing” separately, and adds them up to arrive at the total,” the RIAA argued. “But in the United States and many other countries, the recorded music figure already includes significant amounts of the publishing figure (such as for mechanical royalties that are paid for physical products and digital downloads).”