Q9 - Editor: It is a myth that a significant amount

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: It's not true that tons of music online is the result of downloading someone else's music and reworking it into your own.
Evidence: 99% of people who download someone else's music don't put any music of their own online.

Answer Anticipation:
How can we accept the premise (only 1% of people who download music put their own music online), but argue the anti-conc (a significant amount of music online DOES come from people who download music and then rework it into the "original" music they post online)?

We could just say that those 1% of people who are downloading and sampling music into their own creations are posting A LOT of stuff online! And we could concurrently say that people who put other type of music online (purely their own, nothing from downloaded sources) don't put that much music online. In that world, the 1% people are still responsible for a significant amount of the music online.

There is also a term shift between the evidence (whether you publish new music of your own online) and the conclusion (whether your reworked new music is online). It's possible that other people are placing your reworked songs online. The author's conclusion doesn't need the creator of the reworked music to also be the one who publishes it online.

Correct Answer:
A

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) YES, this was our first thought. "Just because it's only 1% of downloaders doesn't mean they couldn't be responsible for a bunch of online music".

(B) It doesn't matter to the author's logic whether publishing your song online is easy or hard. He's only making a statistical, descriptive claim. The causal backstory is irrelevant.

(C) The author doesn't need to provide an alternative account. If we're trying to argue that "Johnny wasn't the killer", it's not our job to know who WAS the killer. We can disprove one idea, even if leaves a separate question unresolved. The author is only in a debate over "whether reworked songs from downloaded music do / don't comprise a significant amount of online music".

(D) This is the classic trap answer on Flaw: [assumes something EXTREME]. No, the author doesn't need to assume that in 100% of cases, someone who reworks some downloaded music will publish that online.

(E) Again, the classic [assumes something EXTREME]. No, the author doesn't have to assume that in 100% of cases, internet users prefer original music to reworked music.

Takeaway/Pattern: This is a variation of a long-running LSAT trope of testing Percentage vs. Number. The evidence says, "It's only 1%", and the conclusion says, "Thus, it must not be a significant number." The correct answer describes the gap between those two concepts.

#officialexplanation