Date: Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Music piracy on the rise

Recent findings suggest that illegal downloading of music is at an all-time high, and only set to increase. Experts call on the industry to take measures quickly to halt this rapid increase. Following the report from Entertainment Media Research , in their annual Digital Music Survey, it has been found that record numbers of people are illegally downloading music on a regular basis. This has led to calls from experts to industry insiders such as music industry association BPI to take measures to reduce the amount of illegal downloading. However BPI has responded by saying they cannot launch an attack on music piracy alone, but need help from internet service providers in providing better online security, and that ISP gatekeepers and government legislation should also be involved. Results of the survey indicate that 43% of people regularly download music illegally, and 18% of these people said that they intended to carry on doing so. This is charts a large increase in the results from the 2005 survey. In that poll only 36% of respondents claimed that they illegally downloaded, and a mere 8% indicated that they had the intention to continue pirating music downloads in the future. The increase in illegal downloading has been attributed to the increased ease in which this can be done, the reducing fear of prosecution for doing so, and the lack of cost saving inducements for downloading legally. Therefore experts such as John Enser, the head of music at Olswang law firm, have said the music industry needs to make it easier and cheaper to download music from sites such as iTunes and Sony, as an incentive to piraters to do so legally. It appears that this is sorely needed as only 33% of people in the Digital Music Survey answered that prosecution was a deterrent to downloading music illegally, whereas in 2005 that number had been 42%.

Source: Guardian