Does P2P file sharing adversely impact prerecorded CD sales?

That's the subject of Phil Leigh's exclusive interview with Koleman Strumpf and Felix Oberholzer who made the news last week after publishing The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis.

Among the questions that we asked Koleman are the following:

• What is your conclusion?

• Why has other research come to a different conclusion?

• How has your study collected empirical and authoritative data?

• How do you exclude the popularity affect when relating download frequency to CD sales?

• How do you identify "non-popularity" events that trigger download activity?

• If such events stimulate P2P activity, do they also lead to a corresponding drop in physical CD sales in the U.S.?

• What percent of downloading in the U.S. are obtained from offshore P2P sources?

• If legal action is taken in other developed countries to shut down such sources, what happens next?

• What has surprised you about your results?

• What has been the reaction to your study?

• Are students at UNC ready for a legitimate Napster-like service such as the one available at Penn State?

• How do the university administrators feel about it?

The interview is audio-only and requires the Real Player in order to hear it.