New study shows artists think the internet has been good for them, split on filesharing

A new study called "Artists, Musicians and the Internet" has been released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project about how musicians feel about the the internet and file sharing. About 3,600 musicians were interviewed on the phone or took a survey online. The results are not very surprising - many musicians feel that the internet has been great for them for increased exposure; on the other hand, half think filesharing itself is wrong. It really isn't the artists who lose much money from it after all, musicians make most of their money from concert tours. Here are some findings:

Musicians believe the internet is an essential tool to help create and market their work, but at the same time more than half of artists say file sharing of unauthorized copies of music should be illegal...
The report...found that only 28 percent of all artists surveyed consider file sharing to be a major threat to creative industries -- contradicting the official stance of the lobbying arm of the record companies. About 43 percent agree that "file-sharing services aren't really bad for artists, since they help to promote and distribute an artist's work to a broad audience."
...
Only 3 percent of online artists said the internet has had a major negative effect on their ability to protect their creative works. 52 percent of artists said it should be illegal for internet users to share unauthorized music files, compared with 37 percent who said it should be legal. 64 percent of artists said they think the copyright owner should have complete control over the use of a work.

Go check out the article for more. Wired article - Study: Musicians Dig the Net

[By the way, there was also also a good, but unrelated, article in Wired the other day about the Kahle v. Ahcroft case, copyfighters out there may want to check it out: Wired Article - Fight for Public Domain Goes On.]