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I'm not oversimplifying things at all. Many people on this thread are claiming that the business model of iTunes will reduce illegal filesharing. iTunes sold something like 5 million songs in the first month, this is pretty significant number if iTunes will result in less theft there should be a noticable difference in bootlegging. Obviously since it's on limited release right now we won't be seeing it's full effect, but just as obviously if it's going to have an effect we should be seeing it forming. Where is it?

Yes, you are oversimplifying, by looking at only a single variable point (money in this case) for the economic model which drives these things (instead of looking at other variables, such as why people swap, and why they'd be willing to buy.. which btw, has already started happening). Where is the effect? I haven't looked. And it'd be difficult to measure, given the nature of file swapping. It'd probably have to drop quite a bit to be actually noticable (and it'll take a while for it to slow down). However, the fact that many people are going to models like iTunes tells us (gives us a good inference) that there's less people out there swapping files. It's not going to be cut and dry. We won't see a dramatic and sudden drop in swapping. However, it will happen (and we'll probably notice it first by the increase of models like iTune).

-The Hajman-

I'm not looking at the money, the claim is that iTune is a business model that will reduce illegal fileswapping, iTune has been out for a while so there should be some evidence. There seems to be enough evidence to show that it will be a successful business model, so there should be enough evidence to show if it will reduce illegal file sharing, where is it? You keep claiming it back up your claims with proof. Show me how much less illegal filesharing there is now.