from: CNN.com

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- More than a million households deleted all the digital music files they had saved on their PCs in August, a sign that the record industry's anti-piracy tactics are hitting home, research company NPD Group said.

NPD credited the ongoing anti-piracy campaign by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and said publicity about the move led more consumers to delete musical files.

In August, 1.4 million households deleted all music files, whereas prior to August, deletions were at much lower levels, according to Port Washington, New York-based NPD on Wednesday.

When it first began to track deletions in May 2003, NPD found 606,000 households had deleted music files from their PCs.

A related NPD survey of consumer perception, however, found that consumers' overall opinion of the recording industry is suffering due to the RIAA's move to sue hundreds of people alleged to have illegally shared music online. (They should've seen that one coming!)

The RIAA represents big record labels such as Bertelsmann's BMG Entertainment, Vivendi's Universal Music and Time Warner's Warner Music. Time-Warner is the parent company of CNN.com.

NPD also found that the number of households acquiring digital music via peer-to-peer file-sharing services declined by 11 percent from August to September, during the traditional summer holiday for college students.

I think that's just sad. :(

Big deal.... so they delete 'em from their PC. More than likely, before doing that, they burned 'em all to CD! :lol:

What I don't understand is why the fraidy-cats don't just "unshare" the files? Unless the RIAA has unleashed spyware or is remote hacking the pc's, they wouldn't find them if the songs weren't shared online.

Whaaa...? No way! That sounds like a dumb thing to do. It's like nolanbuc wrote, all one needs to do is unshare and they're fine.

In my case, I don't really care about it. I don't even know who the copy-right holders are for a lot of the music I downloaded since it's all out of print :)

Originally posted by XXX
In my case, I don't really care about it. I don't even know who the copy-right holders are for a lot of the music I downloaded since it's all out of print :)

I have always felt the same way XXX - it's for this reason I praise music sharing over the internet

XXX and Retroman... I'm on the same page. If I can't buy it because it's not readily availble (meaning out of print).... then no one is losing money by me downloading vs. purchasing. Not to mention that record companies have been gouging prices since the advent of the CD.

When CD prices become reasonably priced based on the actual cost of producing these CDs, then I'l gladly purchase everything. It costs less than $1.00 to print a CD (for mass printing), and yet we get charged $20.00 for the retail.... what is that .. a 2000% mark-up!Geeeezz... I can't think of any other business market that uses that kind of mark-up and still remains in business. Think about this...being a beer saleman, I can tell you that a six pack of beer, at that kind of a profit margin, would roughly cost the consumer $80.00. Holy Crud! I'd be a very wealthy man!

Now I know that the argument is going to be that there are other costs involved as well... studio time, marketing, etc., etc. However with computer technology this should all cost much less than it did in say 1980 ( just a random year) ... so how come CDs cost more now than a cassettte or album did in 1980... because the record company "Fat Cats" are getting fat, and the actual artists don't see a whole lot more money than a well paid american business man.

So yeah... I'm doing some downloading... but I also try to support the artists by buying directly from their websites if they are on an independent label. It's not that I want to rip off the artists... it's that the artists really aren't seeing much of my purchasing money when I do buy an album. 95% of musical artists salaries comes from touring, merchandise, and radio play. I have known and played with a few international recording artists (Shannon from Godsmack, and the band Kix), and I can tell you that when they were not on tour I was making more money than them just being a loacl beer salesman.

Ooopps... I'm rambling on again. Sorry... I just hate the fact that the RIAA is trying to prosecute people for "stealing" music, when the people should be prosecuting the record companies for ripping of the consumers for a quarter of a century.

I'll just finish my morning coffee and keep quiet. :-(

I'm still going to buy CDs, because I want to help out the artists/groups. A lot of artists and groups are being screwed over by this whole file sharing thing. But I also think a lot of the artists/groups I listen to are being screwed over by the record companies too. The only time I've downloaded songs was when I couldn't find a certain song on a compilation or the song is out of print.

I unshared my folder a long time ago. But like you guy's I mainly download obscure tracks. I used to manage a record store I have all of the CD's i need. :lol:

I feel no remorse for the things I download, because they already have most of my money! Most of the ones I'm downloading and burning are the artists I grew up listening to.

I downloaded the entire Queen catalog of albums and burned them to CD. I had already purchased them all on vinyl, AND on cassette. Same with the entire KISS catalog. I don't think they need any more of my money.

Originally posted by Roemello
Big deal.... so they delete 'em from their PC. More than likely, before doing that, they burned 'em all to CD! :lol:

That's what I would do! :lol:

What a totally over-the-top reaction. It has already been proven that the authorities are only going for those abusers who are downloading thousands of files per day, i.e the serious pirates who make a living.

Here in the UK the authorities have not yet announced the same crackdown as in the US. But as I said, you have to be a serious abuser to even be in with a chance of getting busted.

I download with no remorse.... I like to stick it to the man


but basically all I do is download enough files to burn a CD and then start over, almost all of my downloading is from old 70's or 80's music , and most of those artists someone in my famly had bought the record or cassette.

Hopefully I don't put Alice Cooper, Deep Purple and Jethro Tull in the poor house