All those illegal music downloads don’t just harm the beleagured music industry, they also damage the wider U.S. economy, according to a new report.

Here’s an excerpt from the Lewisville, Texas-based policy thinktank Institute Policy Innovation:

Piracy also causes significant and measurable harm to the upstream suppliers and downstream purchasers who also would have benefited from the sale of legitimate, copyright protected sound recordings. Indeed, the harms that flow from pirate activities produce a cascading effect throughout the economy as a whole. These harms include lost output, lost earnings, lost jobs and lost tax revenues. - The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the U.S. Economy.

As a consequence of global music piracy, the U.S. economy loses $12.5 billion a year and 71,000 jobs, says author Stephen Siwek . By Siwek’s estimates, 26,860 jobs would have been added in the music industry or in downstream retail industries, while 44,200 jobs would have been added as a result in other U.S. industries.

As a result of piracy, U.S. workers lose $2.7 billion in earnings annually costing Uncle Sam $422 million in tax revenues annually.

The report has already been panned by some doubters who believe it was funded by the music industry.

But IPI spokeswoman Erin Fitch says the report was paid for by its “general support funds for Intellectual Property program”. Fitch says the thinktank’s policy is not to disclose its sponsors, though she says IPI, which was founded by former Congressman Dick Armey,  has worked with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and could do so in the future.