As the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Bev Oda is lobbying hard in Ottawa for stricter controls on content downloaded from the internet.
Perhaps she might be interested in a recently-published academic paper by Harvard University Business School’s Felix Oberholzer and Koleman Strumpf from the University of Kansas, School of Business.
Its title, The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue — but the message is loud and clear:
Downloads have an effect on sales that is statistically indistinguishable from zero. Our estimates are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the decline in music sales during our study period.
You can read more on the report and even download your very own souvenir copy here.
Thanks for visiting, Bev 🙂
Andrew Currie 
3 responses to “A Message to Bev Oda”
I’m sure the insane price of CDs with little to no musical value hasn’t affected the industry at all either. Or the fact that many great artists (large and small) are sick of dealing with the “record industry” and are now releasing on their own or with smaller labels because you no longer need the big boys to make CDs you can do it at home. I’m sure that has nothing to do with the decline of the big music makers.
AC:
I agree with Chris. Why pay $30 for a CD because you like one song and get stuck with 14 other songs best left unheard?
I haven’t bought a lot of music in the last year, and I’d say about half of my purchases were done via the iTunes store simply because I could buy the song itself for a buck.
Other than soundtracks, the last few CDs I’ve bought have been from indie labels or bands, like Blanche.
Ed
Hey Ed, I’m with you — I’m not a pirate by choice, and will gladly pay for downloaded content if I maintain a reasonable level of control over what I can do with it.
As for Bev, maybe the reason why she hasn’t popped by for a comment is because she’s busy putting out fires elsewhere:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2y4hd3