I don't agree with all of his suppositions (that the tightened economy has not affected CD buying, and that consumers are not shifting finite personal entertainment dollars away from CDs and toward films/DVDs and video/computer games) but I respect his thoroughness, intellectual honesty, and methodological transparency.

Not surprisingly, the "studies" funded by the recording industry remain the only ones that maintain that there is available conclusive evidence that file-sharing displaces CD sales at all, much less is the primary cause of the industry's doldrums.

UPDATE
Kevin Doran interprets Liebowitz:

I love - and respect - an open mind, but it's kinda hard to take a guy seriously who ping-pongs between poles, then qualifies his latest stance with an 'i dunno' based on wrong data.

The RIAA figure (released after this piece was published) re the '02 mid-year
is -6.7%, not -9.8%, is it not?

I'd verify it myself, but it's a difficult task accessing the site these days.

That ~35% data shift will probably send Leibowitz scrambling back, trying to
justify this reality with his now-available-in-hardback theory.

And then there's the direct competition from the DVD spike to consider,
something which Stan the man seems to have wholly ignored.

Per a NYT front-pager this week, the dollar volume on movie products has
DOUBLED from about $6B to about $12B since the introduction of the DVD five
years ago. What's more, it's done so by leaving the VHS market relatively
unscathed - maybe a 20% decline over that time. And, in this year (and
counting) of recession, DVD sales have managed to grow by another 50%.

Clearly, DVDs (and theatrical releases) are not only taking most of consumers' disposable dollars at this historical moment, there is a perception of greater VALUE for a product that rivals the CD in price and delivers, literally, hours of 'multi-media entertainment' versus the 60 minutes or so of aural wallpaper compact discs provide.

And that's an important distinction to recognize - the lack of interactivity in audio products versus their rivals in movies and games - for what it means
to consumers.

Whether that new view of music products is a response to the lack of engaging
content (i.e. hits/stars), a migration to more permanent 'lifestyle' v trend-driven 'celebrity' music purchases, or a general evolution in the function of music by people (i.e. not the center of the contemporary cultural experience it was in the Boomer heyday) is beside the point for everyone but those whose livelihoods depend on maintaining the viability of those products.

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