A Different Theory on Why People Stop Sharing Music
The net is teeming tonight with articles about a new survey that seems to indicate that the RIAA's "shock and awe" lawsuit campaign worked - one in seven Adults say that they are no longer sharing music now that individual file sharers are being prosecuted.
While this seems like a victory to some, I want to offer an alternate theory as to why many have given up the online music sharing addiction.
They've already got the music.
File sharing is game. In the first week, you accumulate 99 percent of the music you already own and want to listen to in mp3 format, easily accessible on your computer, IPod, or what-have-you. Beyond that, you probably pick up a few more artists that you have heard of and give them a listen.
Week two hits, and you're stuck. You have this NEED to horde more music, but you don't know what to get, so you're downloading whole genres and serving it back up, searching for long lost tunes, and downloading other sharer's whole collections.
This turns into a compulsion and before you know it you've filled your hard drive with gobs of music you'll never have the time to sort, let alone listen to.
Sure, RIAA ran some of these people off, but they didn't scare them away from the tunes, they gave them an excuse to step away from their compulsion.
Besides, they already had the music.
Okay - My last pair of boots didn't go so
well. Compared to the glowing
accounts of most
