We live in an age of distractions. Video games have been popular since the days of pong. Now, they are an integral part of every youth's (as well as many adult's) lives. Many people spend countless hours online doing many things other than P2P sharing. With the invention of DVD's, people spend about 3 times more hours per week watching movies now than they did in 1998. Further, many argue (and I think rightfully so) that the quality of music has been in a steady decline over the past ten years or so.
While there has been a huge decline in sales of music in the past few years, is P2P really to blame? Edward W. Felten points out on his blog that in order to make the conclusion that P2P is responsible, we must first assume that the demand for music has remained constant during the decline in sales. The data on his blog from the US Census Bureau suggests otherwise. The Census Bureau shows that from 1998 to 2003, there has been a 23% decrease in the number of hours people spend listening to recorded music. That's a huge change. People just don't have the time to listen to music in this day and age of so many other media distractions.
Of course P2P filesharing is partly responsible for the decline in sales, but the amount of its responsibility is often blown way out of proportion.
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