RIAA inflation

For quite some time now, RIAA, the music cartel, has been complaining about the terrible damage that the Internet is doing to the busic business. They’re using this reported damage to justify technology that keeps your computer from playing CDs you bought, laws that regulate and criminalize fair use, and laws that allow them to hack into your computer.

The oft-quoted numbers are $4 billion in loses due to piracy and a four percent decline in sales last year. But what if those numbers are inaccurate? What if RIAA is lying?

An independant record label analyzed sales figures and found out that there are good reasons for a 4% drop in sales. Among other things, the record companies released 25% fewer albums in the last two years. Coupled with a sluggish economy and an increase in CD prices, I’d say a 4% decline meant a roaring success to the record labels,

They also studied the loses attributed to piracy and found that "even with the 1992, 1996 or 1997 figures, it would take 10 years for this to add up to the $4 billion in "piracy losses" that someone is pulling out of the air (or a somewhat lower area from which things like this are known to emerge)."

Read RIAA’s Statistics Don’t Add Up to Piracy at MacWizards Music.