Actually, that doesn’t make sense. I don’t know if I will like this. I’ll steal it to see if I like it. I like it, I BUY THE SAME. There is no “more of it”. What I buy is the exact same thing of what I just stole and there was no original that went missing as a result of my theft. Like others have said, no inventory has gone missing from the RIAA or the labels.
Except that it’s only stealing if the owner doesn’t want you to walk out with the first one. Yes, the RIAA has the right to prevent you from filesharing. That doesn’t mean it’s the way to sell more records. Their justification has not been, “It’s ours and we’ll do as we like.” It has been, “It’s killing sales and putting all those hard-working engnineers and technicians, who are not Hoillywood types at all, out of work.”
The survey shows that their thinking is flawed. They make more money and have the capacity to hire more honest, hard-working, not-at-all-Hollywood-type engineers and technicians if they allow people to do this.
Much as I despise the RIAA, and their maudlin PR campaign, I personally don’t think this study is enough to change their minds. As has been pointed out above, there are a lot of variables that need to be controlled. Also, it still seems more logical that people are not going to buy the cow when they can get free slices.