that was me above by the way.

"    People who illegally download music from the internet also spend more money on music than anyone else, according to a new study. The survey, published today, found that those who admit illegally downloading music spent an average of £77 a year on music – £33 more than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/illegal-downloaders-spend-the-most-on-music-says-poll-1812776.html"

I've read that article and others like it. There's so much wrong with it.

When you really think about it though that argument's meaningless.

All it tells you is that people who really like listening to a lot of music tend to be the people who consume more of it. And that the big decline in music sales is proportionate: the people who always spent the most money on music still spend the most money on music, but there is simply less of it all told (due to downloading!). The ceiling is much lower.

I suspect that the music that they buy tends to be the music they can't immediately download - and that if they could immediately download it, they wouldn't buy it.

Plus the brute fact remains that if downloading weren't around, they would HAVE to have bought it. And anyway, is that article suggesting that, were someone to be caught out downloading and fined, they would somehow take revenge on the music industry by never buying any music again?