[url=http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/03/19/209213/study-piracy-doesnt-harm-digital-media-sales]Linky[/url] [quote]European Commission's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies has published [url=http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=6084]a study[/url] which concludes that [url=http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/03/new-research-music-piracy-should-not-be-a-concern-for-copyright-holders/]the impact of piracy on the legal sale of music is virtually nonexistent[/url] or even slightly positive. The study's results suggest that Internet users do not view illegal downloading as a substitute for legal digital music and that a 10% increase in clicks on illegal downloading websites leads to a 0.2% increase in clicks on legal purchase websites. Online music streaming services are found to have a somewhat larger (but still small) effect on the purchases of digital sound recordings, suggesting a complementary relationship between these two modes of music consumption. According to the results, a 10% increase in clicks on legal streaming websites leads to up to a 0.7% increase in clicks on legal digital purchase websites.[/quote] Thoughts? Pirates aren't that bad after all.