Lessig suggests that file sharing can be broken down into a ‘substitute for buying the actual content’, ‘access to music that is no longer available’, ‘access to non copyrighted music’ and ‘to sample music before buying it’. There is more to downloading music to just stealing. I don’t think it is damaging the music industry if people are downloading a couple of songs off an album to ‘sample’ before purchasing the album.
Kid A by Radiohead was leaked online months before the album’s release and was subsequently downloaded by millions of people, but the album still managed to get to number one in America. In 2007 when Radiohead released In Rainbows, they let their fans decided how much they want to pay for it, most paid £5. This shows that even if something is available for free, if fans support the artist, they will most likely spend money on them.
There are some good points made here.
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