P2P has no effect on album sales

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I'm more tempted to buy a CD if I've downloaded it and liked it. Yeah, I know I already have the tracks, but I prefer owning the physical CD rather than mp3s, which is why I'm not massive on using iTunes music store and the like.

GM does make a good point on the divide getting smaller. And like Dragsy, if it weren't for downloading, I definitely wouldn't have bought many of the Muse albums nor various other stuff. And having a physical CD is definitely underrated. I will admit to burning music for my friends, but oftentimes, it's music that they wouldn't have listened to anyway, so it's not much of a loss.

Agreed. Often I download a few songs and go "Oooh I like this" and as I'm the kind of person who likes to have the physical object (such as a CD with case, DVD with case etc) rather than a blank CD with the album title scrawled in black pen, I end up buying the album.

[Cadet Ember McLain]

I would definately buy more CDs, except for two relatively major problems:

1) The lack of a job, and therefore a lack of income.

2) I don't like enough songs on an album to warrant buying it anyway.

The only exception thus far to (2) is Evanescence. But I did download the complete "Open Door" album, because it wasn't out here for months, and people already had it...

[ROC]

it's hard for me to think that leakings haven't affected album sales when certainly in the case of 2006 records like Lupe Fiasco's album, they seem to have had a substantial effect.

Interesting that you bring that up. The Shins debuted at #2 on the US Album Charts (#5 in Australia) with their latest album, despite it being leaked three months earlier online. A case of a leak improving album sales?

[Hellfire]

I listen to mostly mixtapes and such, which aren't usually available at music stores, except for in bigger cities. I'm not driving to New York or Boston to get them, I'd rather just download them. If I find an artist that I like, I'll look for their CD's. I downloaded Immortal Technique's CD's awhile ago, then went out and bought them a month later, because I wanted to support his music.