Ummm... I'm reminded of something a prof in university told me... you can say anything at all with statistics...I would like to see a truely unbiased study, that takes a broad look at the thing... they claim that sales are down, could it hve anyting to do with the fact that cd prices are higher than they have any right to be? (Were we not told when they came out that given a few years they would drop to the price of albums??? We sure bought that load of bull, didn't we?!?!?!?!) And "international" cd's are even more costly than that?
I donno... I only know that I've read the exact opposite stats... (of course from the Pro-peer-to-peer side, just as the links above I suspect are mostly fromt he anti side...)
Like I said... it boils down to, you don't like it, don't use it, and ask people not to put your music there... but for people and bands who want to use the service to spread their music around, what's the beef?