Music labels quietly use file-sharing data to boost sales

From Knight-Ridder Tribune via the Houston Chronicle:

Rather than talking in the company's air-conditioned offices, the executive led Garland and his partner through a fetid back alley to a secluded courtyard.

Only then did the executive ask his question: Which songs, exactly, are the millions of Internet users illegally downloading? "I just thought, this is crazy," recalled Garland, who had to prop his laptop on a dumpster to give his presentation.

The reason for the cloak-and-dagger theatrics: While the music industry publicly flays Kazaa and other file-swapping services for aiding piracy, those same services provide an excellent view of what's really popular with fans.

Record-label executives discreetly use Garland's research firm, BigChampagne, and other services to track which songs are traded online and help pick which new singles to release. They increasingly use such file-sharing data to convince radio stations and MTV to give new songs a spin or boost airplay for those that are popular with downloaders.

Click here for the rest.

This whole dowloading saga is getting weird. What with last week's study that seemingly shows no link between downloading and loss of record sales, and this new story showing how the recording industry is using the downloading phenomenon to their own advantage, it becomes obvious that the record companies now have no idea what they're doing, and they're running scared. As if ten years of boy bands and teenage porn-star pop singers didn't already make that achingly clear.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$