I'll make one post on this because it's a serious sore spot for me, as certain people know, and I'd rather not turn the whole thread into something that needs to be on Politics.
Free downloads do not generally boost sales. They do boost sales for certain groups that can benefit from it - most notably "indie" acts that get exposure this way they wouldn't through traditional formats, and groups that have high brand loyalty can also get sales (maybe less, maybe more, depending on how their loyalty is built). But an industry as a whole, which is not made primarily of either of those groups, does not benefit from piracy. As you quite correctly pointed out, Spud, people do not generally buy what they can get for free.
Quite a lot of people argue that downloading helps sales. Coincidentally, it is usually the same people who benefit from them (the downloaders), whereas the vast, vast, overwhelming majority of people who sell the product (and would thus be financially rewarded if downloading actually helped sales) are against them and try to stop them. One has the luxury of believing in the economic theories of a bunch of guys on the internet who think their downloading free stuff helps the industry, or the economic theories of the actual industry, who make their living selling these things. This is not limited to manga, but definitely includes it, on both sides of the Pacific (indeed, the Japanese are far more anti-piracy than the US companies).
Piracy has never, not even once, had a beneficial effect on an entire industry. Indeed, every single industry, without exception, that has been affected by piracy has shrunk in total sales and had major corporations go out of business during the time period it was so affected. Those time periods do not overlap or correspond with any given economic recession, given the fact that, e.g., music was widely pirated long before movies were due to differing bandwidth requirements. In places where copyright law is virtually never enforced, such as China (1/6 of the human population and thus a pretty good test market), the market for legitimate sales has completely collapsed. However, things that cannot be reasonably pirated (in China, a good example is MMOs) continue to sell healthily even while nothing else in the same market does.
Plenty of people will tell you downloading boosts sales. They will point to anecdotal evidence (and yes, some people do buy after trying, which I have no issue with), and they will point to certain individual artists who benefitted. They will link to studies, which all have various unacknowledged flaws (often in the control group - one highly-touted study I was linked to compared the music-buying habits of people who download music versus those who don't, but had no information as to whether the non-downloading control group actually liked music), at least so far as I've seen, though obviously you should judge that yourself. And they will never, ever be able to say "The X industry is so much healthier now that piracy is commonplace!" because that never actually happens.
Edit: Breaking my own rule for quick clarity - I am saying that it does hurt sales, it always hurts sales, and that this is easily observable through marketplace performance when piracy is commonplace (the music industry having taken a massive hit in total sales even when you factor in Itunes, the Chinese and Taiwanese markets, etc.). I will also addend that I think this problem is somewhat less bad for manga scanlations (mostly because they are not identical to the legitimate product, which has some advantages in ease of rereading, etc.), but that this does not mean it isn't a problem or isn't detrimental to overall sales.
Free downloads do not generally boost sales. They do boost sales for certain groups that can benefit from it - most notably "indie" acts that get exposure this way they wouldn't through traditional formats, and groups that have high brand loyalty can also get sales (maybe less, maybe more, depending on how their loyalty is built). But an industry as a whole, which is not made primarily of either of those groups, does not benefit from piracy. As you quite correctly pointed out, Spud, people do not generally buy what they can get for free.
Quite a lot of people argue that downloading helps sales. Coincidentally, it is usually the same people who benefit from them (the downloaders), whereas the vast, vast, overwhelming majority of people who sell the product (and would thus be financially rewarded if downloading actually helped sales) are against them and try to stop them. One has the luxury of believing in the economic theories of a bunch of guys on the internet who think their downloading free stuff helps the industry, or the economic theories of the actual industry, who make their living selling these things. This is not limited to manga, but definitely includes it, on both sides of the Pacific (indeed, the Japanese are far more anti-piracy than the US companies).
Piracy has never, not even once, had a beneficial effect on an entire industry. Indeed, every single industry, without exception, that has been affected by piracy has shrunk in total sales and had major corporations go out of business during the time period it was so affected. Those time periods do not overlap or correspond with any given economic recession, given the fact that, e.g., music was widely pirated long before movies were due to differing bandwidth requirements. In places where copyright law is virtually never enforced, such as China (1/6 of the human population and thus a pretty good test market), the market for legitimate sales has completely collapsed. However, things that cannot be reasonably pirated (in China, a good example is MMOs) continue to sell healthily even while nothing else in the same market does.
Plenty of people will tell you downloading boosts sales. They will point to anecdotal evidence (and yes, some people do buy after trying, which I have no issue with), and they will point to certain individual artists who benefitted. They will link to studies, which all have various unacknowledged flaws (often in the control group - one highly-touted study I was linked to compared the music-buying habits of people who download music versus those who don't, but had no information as to whether the non-downloading control group actually liked music), at least so far as I've seen, though obviously you should judge that yourself. And they will never, ever be able to say "The X industry is so much healthier now that piracy is commonplace!" because that never actually happens.
Edit: Breaking my own rule for quick clarity - I am saying that it does hurt sales, it always hurts sales, and that this is easily observable through marketplace performance when piracy is commonplace (the music industry having taken a massive hit in total sales even when you factor in Itunes, the Chinese and Taiwanese markets, etc.). I will also addend that I think this problem is somewhat less bad for manga scanlations (mostly because they are not identical to the legitimate product, which has some advantages in ease of rereading, etc.), but that this does not mean it isn't a problem or isn't detrimental to overall sales.