Originally Posted by nekokami
Last I heard, a Harvard study had suggested that file-sharers are actually buying more content, not less. I don't know what other (industry-independent) studies have been done in this area, though.
I suspect that this is one of those quirks of statistics - if you look at how many CDs a randomly selected file-sharer buys vs a randomly selected non-file-sharer you may find that the file-sharer buys more, but that may be because a file-sharer is more into music than a non-file-sharer.
However, if you look at a group who are all into music - say the attendees of a music concert - and then compare the number of CDs bought between the file-sharers and non-file-sharers in that group then you might find that the file-sharers buy fewer CDs.
Oh the joys of statistics, you can make them say whatever you want them to.