[AlanG]

3."Uploading music and burning it without the consent of the creator may be illegal, but isn't the music industry exaggerating the effect on the music sector?"

There is overwhelming evidence that unauthorised copying and distribution means less music is sold.

For example, look at the way sales of albums have fallen while internet uploads have soared. During one four-month period of 2002, the number of music files available on pirate sites nearly doubled from 500 million to 900 million. At the same time global music sales in 2002 fell by around 7%. As a result around 250 million fewer albums were sold in 2002 than in 2001.
thats very interesting except although the figures for the sales are smaller there is no figure given for the number of albums released during this period. Which has infact fallen, and had also fallen from 2001 to 2002. Its like claiming country A with 100million dollars is better off than country B with 50million dollars and ignoring that country A has 100million people living in it while country B has 3. If less albums are released it doesnt take a genius to figure out that less will be sold.

Uploading and mass copying weren't necessarily the only reason for this decline - but they definitely had a major impact.
so if they werent the only reason why were none of the other reasons listed? Maybe because they would show that downloading is a scapegoat of the music industry?

In particular, sales of the top-selling artists are declining: in 2001 for the first time in many years no album sold more than ten million copies in the world's largest market, America - a pattern almost repeated in 2002 when only one album - Eminem's The Eminem Show - passed the ten million sales mark. And as sales of the bigger names fall, there are repercussions for the growth and support of new talent.
Perhaps something to do with the huge dip taken by the American economy and *every* business sufferring money problems in the immediate aftermath of September 11th, hay not to be crude but maybe people realised there was more to life than buying a luxury item?

Perhaps the most worrying development is that the majority of people downloading music from the internet are young music fans, who are also the biggest consumers of music. 41% of young people in Europe who get music 'for free' say they buy less CDs, compared to only 19% who buy more.

what a fantastic raw statistic. For all we know the 19% might buy 100% more CDs than before while the 41% who buy less may only buy 1 less per year. As no figures are given to show this either way and the company throwing this propaganda out has everything to gain by publishing more statistics to back it up can we assume that this is the case? No mention is given to "why" they buy less, perhaps they download some album tracks from Avril or Britney and realise they are crap so dont waste their money on the album?

A whole new generation of music lovers is damaging the very diversity they look out for in music.
the diversity that can be found online and not on radio/MTV you mean?