By Jo Best, 29 November 2005 12:15
NEWS
Illegal downloads are still beating legal online music in Europe, analysts have found.
A report from analyst house JupiterResearch discovered that consumers are three times more likely to get their digital music from illegal file-sharing networks than pay to download the tracks from online song shops such as iTunes and Napster, with 15 per cent of consumers using P2P sites and five per cent using the legitimate online shops.
The taste for illegal music is strongest amongst the young. Of those consumers between 15- and 24-years-old, 34 per cent are illegal file-sharers and, according to the report, have little concept of music as a paid commodity.
Mark Mulligan, analyst at JupiterResearch, told silicon.com that despite the growth in legal sales from services like iTunes, as well as legal actions against uploaders, illegal file-sharing is here to stay.
"The momentum is with the legal services, there's nothing to suggest legal file-sharing is going to go away," he said. "It's a firmly entrenched behaviour and the fact it's free makes it more difficult."
However, the problem is not purely a digital one - young people are happy to get their music illegally whatever format it's available on.
JupiterResearch found that 43 per cent of younger consumers prefer copying CDs to buying them and 40 per cent believe that CDs aren't value for money.
According to Mulligan, the music industry needs to rethink how it deals with young file-sharers. "There needs to be a sea-change in approach," he said. "Instead of [the industry] paying lip service to legal services... there needs to be a whole new layer of free legal services," such as ad-supported downloads, he said.
Comments
There are 7 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
I want to buy my music online, but will only pay for DRM free, lossless songs. At most, such a purchase would be worth $2 to me for singles, $7 for albums; and those numbers are probably higher than they should be. Current online music should really be free, and used as a marketing tool. Big Media is greedy, pure and simple.
2. anonymous
The major record labels should have jumped on a free downloading program that is ad supported years ago back when Kazaa was popular. They probably would have made more money than they are currently loosing to people downloading and expensive legal fees. On the other hand I have no sympathy for a company whining over the sale of CD's when they can afford to give artists enough pay to drive cars that I can’t even dream up working my butt off through college on $6 per hour. When you see rapper's pimpin a beat up 96' Mazda 626 instead of a 250K+ sports car and have enough talent that enables them to produce more than one good song per CD, I may rethink my position.
3. D. Applegate
Of course people are turning to illegal downloads. Why would anyone want to put substandard quality music in my collection when they can get good quality elsewhere? iTunes is garbage. Low quality, restricted music? Right, sure. I rip all my CD's at 100% VBR (Not 192 CBR, which is about on par with a 5 year old cassette tape). I can put my mp3's on my file server, and play them from any machine, I can put them in my mp3 player, and I can take them to work. iTunes mp3's you can't put on more than one machine, and hte quality is terrible...they just can't compete!
DRM is a joke, nothing but a pair of handcuffs. If consumers are to wear them, they should at least have done something to deserve them!
4. Rob Hoover
P2P file sharing is here to stay.
the bit torrent networks have agreed to DRM content.
itunes will continue to bring in more biz as they should partner with the bit torrent networks for pay per listen.
just like Video on Demand, we can have Music on Demand, like xml radio , sirus radio etc..
we should create the bit torrent network to include a legal music on demand like itunes does.
keep p2p technolgy, but limit the companies registered to use a torrent network.
5. dave beall
I will never spend a dime on any movie, dvd, concert, or music cd untill the media corporations stop sueing people.
The media companies are loosing 100 music cd sales a year, just from myself.
I have been boycotting all paid media for 4 years now.
I think the p2p technology is here to stay, but a lot of people like myself have just stoped all media, period.
6. MusicFan
Do these analysts get paid for this?
Do you need to do an analysis to work out people would rather have something free as appose to paying? duh!
And only "3 times" more likely? get real.
Everyone downloads free music, films and games. and if they don’t have a pc to do it or the tech nohow, they just get a copy off their mates!
This is not new’s, this is everyday culture for anyone with a broadband connection!
Are we not a nation in dept to credit cards and mountain high morgages? In our current economical climate, being able to listen to music, watch films and play games for free is a sense of gaining something from a day spent making ends meet!
7. anonymous
The major record labels should have jumped on a free downloading program that is ad supported years ago back when Kazaa was popular. They probably would have made more money than they are currently loosing to people downloading and expensive legal fees. On the other hand I have no sympathy for a company whining over the sale of CD's when they can afford to give artists enough pay to drive cars that I can’t even dream up working my butt off through college on $6 per hour. When you see rapper's pimpin a beat up 96' Mazda 626 instead of a 250K+ sports car and have enough talent that enables them to produce more than one good song per CD, I may rethink my position.