STUDY SAYS DOWNLOADING WILL HURT MUSIC BIZ

A prominent technology-research firm Tuesday (9/19) is predicting that record labels will lose $3.1 billion annually in potential music sales by 2005 as piracy increases and digital-distribution services allow artists to go independent, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Forrester Research, in a report called "Content Out of Control," predicts that consumers will shun downloadable-music services that labels are offering with built-in protection against unauthorized copying. Instead, the report says, users will stick to Napster and similar programs offering unprotected free files.

It won't matter which way the court rules in the pending Napster case, Forrester's Eric Scheirer contends, since a variety of underground services will remain, and record labels will be reluctant to sue consumers who use them.

"I think the public-relations backlash from putting users in jail would cause them more problems than they now face," said Scheirer.