RIAA condemns research that shines positive light on pirates

Researchers recently presented a paper that suggested U.S. pirates buy roughly 30 percent more music than those who do not file share. The Recording Industry Association of America wasn't best pleased and has responded by stating the research is "misleading."

Originally reported last month by TorrentFreak, the research came from the American Assembly, a public affairs group affiliated with Columbia University.

Joshua Friedlander, RIAA's vice president of research and strategic analysis, decided to refute the study in a blog post on Monday:

Some commentary has misleadingly reported that people who use P2P services like BitTorrent buy more music than non-users, implying that there's some sort of causation. In reality, the comparison is unfair -- what it's comparing is people who are interested in music with people who might not be interested at all.

In short, Friedlander argues that file sharers are inherently more interested in music and therefore may buy more music than other groups -- but that this does not equate to the idea that file sharers are shoring up the industry. In addition, he said, it is unfair to compare p... [Read more]