Pirated Music Becoming More & More Popular
08.01.07 - 03:42pm
Maybe they are just “repositories for stolen music” after all, as Doug Morris the Universal CEO, so eloquently stated last November when explaining why Microsoft was paying the music labels for every Zune sold. He also said that they should be getting paid for the stolen music. If that is the case they may have to charge a lot more than a $1 as a UK survey showed not such great news.
A survey conducted in the UK by Entertainment Media Research says that 43 percent of the people surveyed downloaded music illegally up from 36 percent one year ago.
Why? Well the reason given by 91 percent of the people was simple “Its free.”
The pirated music downloads have risen in all age groups in the UK in direct correspondence to the rise in the amount of little music players people own. 77 percent of people now own a MP3 music player of some kind up from 57 percent last year and 37 percent the year before.
Basically as users are getting more comfortable using the iPod, Zune or the like they are also getting more comfortable using the pirated music, especially as they realize that unless you’re really active in distributing th music, chances of getting caught aren’t too high. Only 33 percent of the people were afraid of being caught this year down from 40 percent last year.
Also significant in the survey is that people who have downloaded illegally and not been caught say they will download illegally more often. This percent of people have increased from 6 percent in 2005 to 8 percent in 2006 and then took a big leap to 18 percent in 2007. (Perhaps we were all just kidding ourselves when we said we wouldn’t steal if the music was DRM free.)
Legal downloads have also risen with 58 percent of people saying they own at least one legal song, up from last year’s 50 percent, but not enough to overcome the pirated music. Makes you wonder just how long the DRM free venture will actually last.
Speak Your Peace