Interesting statistics! In regards to game piracy, it certainly is difficult for consol games to be pirated vs. PC just on the proprietary factors with the hardware involved. Not that it cant be done, its just a very cumbersome process to make it work, and can cause costly issues with the hardware, so that might be why there are more seeders compared to leeches on those. When I bought my PS3, I know I took a stab at some old PS1 and PS2 pirate versions (that I used to own on disc format years ago) just for nostalgic reasons, and also since Playstation hadnt re-released them as downloads at the time. The process to get them to work was so lengthy and buggy that I gave up on it after a few hours of failed attempts. So I would agree that because its not EASY to do, might make it a deterrent.
Returning back to the music topic regarding spiraling sales and piracy, Im going to stick to my guns on my original theories, even keeping in mind the data included by Skyrefuge. I feel it is a problematic issue that is compounded by MORE THAN ONE factor. It appears that everyone is stuck to the tit of piracy, because its an easy target (no pun intended!) but it is not the ONLY reason of WHY, it is one of several contributing factors that seem to be overlooked.
1. TOO MUCH MUSIC The more I analyze it, the more I feel this is still indeed the major problem. If your ears and mind were like your stomach, it can only retain so much at a time. The analogy used in the very beginning of this thread about used book stores is good, but another good analogy (which I used in the MySpace rant thread) would be that with the free market as well as the affordability & accessibility of quality recording technology and if the world was a club or venue there are more artists/bands climbing on stage that there are people paying at the door to attend, thus the pie slices getting thinner and thinner. There are several more examples that could be used, and I hear this more and more from the average Joe music consumer all the way up to the actual artists, some of which hold higher accolades, and making mention of this problem in interviews.
2. THE FREE MARKET I love Steve Jobs for pushing technology to its limits, slowly moving away from the proprietarys that Apple was know for, as well as putting out quality hardware/software. I love my iPhone and iPod, However, I despise him for his ideological views of a free market for music, unbundling the album, strong-arming the industry dinosaurs and artists, and allowing any schmoozer wannabe to compete on a digital level with no quality control. I know everyone disagrees with me, but I believe this goes hand-in-hand with the TOO MUCH MUSIC syndrome.
3. PIRACY So theres too much music, its a free market, and now you can go online and dump down to your HD whatever you are looking for, from the hottest selling artists, to the indie guy strumming guitar strings across his ass. Rather than sit and play Samples of hundreds of thousands of potential buys, its only a few mouse clicks to get everything and more for free and try it out later when you have the time to. As much as we all say well buy it if we like it, the general majority of music consumers out there rarely, if never, buy anything in the long run if they already downloaded it.
4. GOOD-BYE BLIND BUYS - The days of blind-buying has been gone for years, and because of this trend, it makes consumers less apt to actually buy anything outright at all unless they listen to it first. Take in to consideration the first three problems listed above, and this one is self explanatory. Not a huge contributor, but still a contributor none the less.
5. CONSUMER COMPLACENCY This is the nail in the proverbial coffin. With the digital age in full swing now, music has become, for lack of a better term, a disposable commodity for the consumer. Theres too much of it, its a level playing field for artists competing for potential buyers, it can be sampled up front or better yet, it can be acquired for nothing and as the end result, the consumer has nothing to show for it other than a crappy sound file on their computer. In the end, since it is not a tangible product, it really has no value whatsoever to the consumer. It has temporary satisfaction, and cannot be sold to re-propagate any value, but ironically can be easily deleted or re-acquired if the consumer deems it so. This is something that comes with the compounding issues in the first four factors, and ironically, according to the chart Glenn posted, Americans are the worst offenders. No surprise there.