This study of music downloading and P2P filesharing from the internet provides an interesting and original glimpse of university student behaviour and attitudes to this important issue in copyright law. Apart from a student questionnaire, the authors have also ascertained the views of university IT Services and of music sellers. Whilst the majority of respondents to the student questionnaire said that they downloaded music from the Internet, those that downloaded the most music also spent the most on buying music. Record store interviewees did not feel that online file sharing was having a detrimental effect on sales in their stores. The authors tentatively suggest that claims made by the music industry that P2P file sharing is severely damaging sales are not supported, and the general decline in sales may be due to a mix of reasons.
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