Good question, but the more important one is whether filesharing is doing that. This is where the question of whether someone would have bought something otherw

Good question, but the more important one is whether filesharing is doing that. This is where the question of whether someone would have bought something otherwise or not comes in. Anecdotally, most of the people I know who fileshare just consume more now than they did, in a wider variety. Some of them have stopped buying stuff, but most of them haven't, and many went to Hulu, iTunes, Grooveshark, Pandora, etc. as soon as those became a good enough alternative. You don't need to prevent it completely, that's putting your eyes on the wrong goal (though this seems to be the tack that they're taking). You just need to make the alternative as easy or easier and inexpensive enough to not think too much about if you're moderately well off. It's a stupid company that tries to force their market to act in the way they want it to, rather than finding a way to cater to them.