Here is a very interesting article in German on the controversy surrounding Stan Liebowitz, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, and Koleman Strumpf and the issue of whether illegal file-sharing has hurt music sales. An English translation is here; Craig Newmark reports as well. The upshot is that Liebowitz has been attacking the Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf claim that illegal downloads do not much hurt music sales. Liebowitz claims that the original paper, published in the JPE, is incorrect. In English, here is Liebowitz’s side of the story. Here are our earlier posts on the Oberholzer-Gee/Strumpf paper. Here are quotations by Koleman Strumpf. Does anyone have a link to a further defense by the paper’s authors?
Even without having their data, Liebowitz has pretty much destroyed the results of the original paper.
More generally, it seems to be a problem that big journals, particularly in economics, and maybe especially the JPE, are obsessed with counterintuitive results. Wasn’t there a study which showed that results in top journals were less likely to be replicated?
And it’s pretty shoddy that he hasn’t heard back about his comment after half a year. Comments aren’t refereed, are they?
Who cares whether free trade in music hurts music industry revenue? The question is whether it increases the amount of music available.
I think if he meant theft he would have said theft. Copyright infringement or illegal/unauthorized copying are more accurate terms (unless you are hiding CDs in your jacket. that really would be theft).
Yes, of course. And evicting someone from a rent-controlled apartment is “stealing” their right to rent below market-clearing prices.
Any government intervention in the market (as copyright clearly is) can be described as a “property” right if you squint hard enough. I guess if it mostly benefits rich people, it doesn’t count.
I have a dataset that required I sign a confidentiality agreement. That they cannot/will not release the data isn’t weird by any means. Despite a policy that requires researchers release their data, how can an editor get around that kind of thing?
But, that still doesn’t make it any easier to figure out how is right and who is wrong on this.
The reason why there are copyright laws on music is because the marginal cost of production is zero. People will consume a good until the marginal benefit equals the marginal cost. Without copyright laws, the music would have to be given away. What musician would work so hard to just give her work away?
Hamilton – I understand. But I think you’re missing the point. Presumably, we sign these confidentiality agreements with firms because otherwise we couldn’t get the data. There’s no incentive to the firm to hand out their data. A confidentiality agreement allows for the data to be released, without harming the firm (presumably they incur some cost if the data was public use).
So either way, you get the same outcome. On the one hand, you get results we cannot replicate because we cannot get the data. On the other hand, we get no results to replicate at all. Personally, I prefer the former to the latter. At least with the former, it’s still an option for someone else to approach the same firm and get the data, or to get a similar firm’s data but agreeing to the same conditions. But if we cannot make confidences at all, then there’s a lot of data we cannot acquire. I think on average, we’ll learn more by having these agreements. But this isn’t easy. This is just the real world.
nelzig,
“I think if he meant theft he would have said theft. Copyright infringement or illegal/unauthorized copying are more accurate terms”
Formally-legally you’re right, of course. Consider “theft” a methaphor. It’s certainly a better one than “trade”.
chris,
“Yes, of course. And evicting someone from a rent-controlled apartment is “stealing” their right to rent below market-clearing prices.
If they paid the rent, you could argue this – regardless of what you think about rent control. Otherwise, I don’t see the parallel.
“Any government intervention in the market (as copyright clearly is)”
Not really. Any artist is allowed to give away his stuff for free.
“I guess if it mostly benefits rich people, it doesn’t count.”
Most professional musicians are poor.
“Most professional musicians are poor.”
Yes, but music downloading increases the sales for these poor musicians. The sales losses are felt among the top musicians. Downloading increases sales for the bottom 75% of all musicians.
http://www.katallaxi.se/grejer/blackburn/blackburn_fs.pdf
Check out Table 8 on page 46.
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