Study: digital music piracy is rampant amongst teens

by Stevie Smith - Jun 17 2008, 10:08

While most of the CD-to-cassette tape generation may have indulged in a spot of shadowy music copying for the sake of presenting a girlfriend with a personal mix tape, or handing a favourite album to a friend, the Internet and MP3 age has given rise to a massive influx in per-user piracy rates, claims a new study.

Specifically, a huge academic study of music ownership amongst young people has discovered that teenagers and students have an average of 842 illegally copied song tracks secreted away on their portable digital music players.

And, reaching beyond just music content copied for personal use, the study also showed that the versatility of the Internet as a means of digital delivery has led to around half of 14 to-24-year-olds openly sharing the music collections stored on their computer hard drives via contentious peer-to-peer (P2P) networks

The study, which was conducted by the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, was the largest academic undertaking of its kind and the findings have left industry representative the British Music Rights (BMR) group somewhat surprised.

“I was one of those people who went around the back of the bike shed with songs I had taped off the radio the night before,” conceded BMR chief executive Fergal Sharkey (the former lead singer of 1970’s punk band The Undertones). “But this totally dwarfs that, and anything we expected.”

According to the study, the average consumer’s digital music player is carrying around 1,770 song tracks, which, when gauged against the 842 tracks that are supposedly copied illegally, means around 47.5 percent of each music collection is housed via copyright violation by the user.

The study also notes that the figure rises when shifting demographic focus down from 14 to 24-year-old music consumers to the 14 to 17-year-old bracket, with the previous 47.5 percent copy rate jumping to around 61 percent.

With instances of illegal music copying on the up through CD burning and Net sharing, the British Music Rights group is looking to use the study’s figures to help in its efforts to move Internet service providers (ISPs) towards offering online users access to legal subscription-based music services.

Most current online music portals, such as Apple’s market-leading iTunes Store, deliver their content with a fixed per-track, per-album price tag.

“80 percent of [polled] downloaders said they would pay for a legal subscription-based service,” added Mr. Sharkey, “and they told us they would be willing to pay more than a few pounds a month.”

Already carrying the support of the record industry, the BMR group’s subscription plan would see ISPs provide user access to entire catalogues of songs from major music publishers in return for an additional monthly charge atop of their agreed Internet connection fee.

The BMR has not yet divulged the exact monthly amount those polled said they would be willing to pay for a music subscription, although reports suggest it to be somewhere in the region of £10 GBP (approx. $20 USD).

While subscription-based music services have yet to gain significant traction, progress was made in France last week when service provider Orange struck a content agreement with Sony BMG, Universal, EMI Group, and Warner Music (the ‘Big 4’ music labels) to open more than a million songs to Orange users for an additional charge of £9.40 GBP per month.

The BMR is hopeful that similar subscription-based content deals will emerge through UK providers in the near future.

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