This could be a VERY big story in the record industry. A new Canadian sponsored study says that illegal downloading promotes music sales. Now the Recording Industry Association of America, International Federation of Phonographic Industries, British Phonographic Industry and the Canadian Recording Industry Association might not like this - for the last few years they have all blamed declining CD sales almost wholly on illegal downloading.

But the independent survey, sponsored by Industry Canada and supervised by two professors at the the University of London and Decima Research seems to suggest that illegal downloading actually leads to an increase in music purchases and that there is a positive correlation between peer-to-peer downloading and CD purchasing. The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study for Industry Canada surveyed over 2000 Canadians on the music downloading and purchasing practises and comment can be seen at http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2347/125/