Study finds Mac users are more honest than Windows users

If you're a music industry executive, you should be praying that the Mac wins the desktop war. Why? Because, as Tom Krazit writes, a recent NPD survey finds that Mac users are much more likely than Windows users to actually pay for music. How much more likely? Consider:

The data says that 50 percent of all Mac users surveyed by NPD purchased at least one song during the third quarter, while only 16 percent of Windows users purchased a song from an online music store. And 32 percent of Mac users bought a CD during that same time, while just 28 percent of Windows users did so.

What explains this digital divide between Windows pirates and law-abiding Mac citizens? One reason might well be that iTunes ships with the Macwhile Windows users actually have to think for a few minutes and download it from the web. "Thinking" and "Windows" apparently don't go together often enough. Actually, it may well be that Windows users simply don't listen to music, wallflowers that they are. :-)

Kidding aside, I'm not sure why Mac users buy more music than Windows users. Moral superiority comes to mind, but you already knew that. The real question is why the music industry makes it so hard for legitimate businesses to make money from their catalogs, licensing music at prohibitive rates. Does the music industry have a death wish? It would appear so....