This is an odd news report:

More than a million households deleted all the digital music files they had saved on their PCs in August - a sign that the record industry's anti-piracy tactics are hitting home, said research company NPD Group on Wednesday.

NPD credited the ongoing anti-piracy campaign by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and said publicity about the move led more consumers to delete musical files.

In August 1.4 million households deleted all music files, whereas prior to August, deletions were at much lower levels, according to Port Washington, New York-based NPD.

When it first began to track deletions in May 2003, NPD found 606,000 households deleted music files from their PCs.

A related NPD survey of consumer perception, however, found that consumers' overall opinion of the recording industry is suffering due to the RIAA's move to sue hundreds of people alleged to have illegally shared music online. [Reuters]

So twice as many people deleted music files from their computers after the RIAA napalm assault on file sharers began as before. Gee, what a shock. It's still only about 1/40 of file sharers in the country. And is this statistic more important for the long-term health of the industry than this?

"consumers' overall opinion of the recording industry is suffering due to the RIAA's move to sue hundreds of people alleged to have illegally shared music online"

I think not.