take that riaa

not that they would acknowledge it... this article describes a study in which researchers found that music file downloading is not related to the decline in music sales. i only read the abstract, so i can't comment on the integrity of their methodology (validity, etc), but given that it is coming out of the u of c, and got published, i'd like to think they did at least a decent job.

it's interesting to see this study contradicting a notion that is generally accepted to be true and that makes logical sense (if people are downloading music, they avoid having to buy it, therefore sales decline). i'm curious as to whether this study gets any sort of larger scale publicity. i doubt it given that findings that oppose the interests of powerful/influential/$$$ groups tend to get buried, or at least delayed or ignored... *cough cough* did you know cigarettes are bad for you?!... did you know that big oil related stuffs cause environmental distress?!

it is only one study, though, and if you know how to appropriately interpret research findings, you would generally want an entire body of research before feeling comfortable making any sort of conclusive/confident statement. anyway, the riaa can easily shift their argument to focus more on the "intellectual property" aspect than the loss of revenue side of things.

i like coming across research that suggests that what we assume to be true may actually not be. it shows the value of going ahead and investigating relationships between variables, even when you are pretty sure you already know what you will find. you never know when you will be surprised and possibly motivate important changes that were not even considered before.

that being said, not all research is really that pertinent or practical or earth shattering, but it sure can be entertaining/intersting! (go ahead, click... you know you want to.) i didn't read any of them, but one title that caught my eye was daniel oppenheimer of princeton university's report: "consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly." oh you clever tigers.