Number of downloads does not equal number of lost sales

There is a good summary of a recent decision by a US judge here stating that the number of downloads can not be equated with the same number of lost sales. The music and film industries quote ridiculous figures regarding lost sales, so ridiculous that their advertising ends up being ineffective. There's an ad before movies here that quotes a number that may as well be 4 bazillion for all the relevance it has.

The shift from music as a product, to being an activity or service, and the concomitant changes in how money is earned from music is a slow process, but the sooner people grasp this, the better their chances of survival, I think. Access to the Internet is crucial in this change, so that places where physical media still dominate (like Melanesia, for example) will still hold on to the old approach for longer. The speed with which I saw a track circulated via bluetooth in Honiara recently, however, indicates that any sort of digital transfer can be effective, so other networks might work in conjunction with the web where access is less widespread.