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DIGITAL MUSIC — Legal downloaders gain on scofflaws |
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Written by asap
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Saturday, 24 March 2007 |
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Since the advent of easy peer-to-peer file-sharing programs in the late 1990s, the recording industry has been hemorrhaging paying customers.
Now, it appears there’s finally a reason for music executives to smile: A major market research firm predicts the number of people who pay for digital music will surpass those who get it illegally this year.
Of course, no one’s popping champagne corks just yet, considering overall illegal downloads still dwarf paid-for ones. The latter discrepancy is unlikely to change anytime soon because the scofflaws each tend to snag a lot more songs than legitimate buyers.
In a report last week, NPD Group found the pool of legal downloaders grew to 13 million households in 2006, a 63 percent increase from the year before. Over the same period, those downloading from the peer-to-peer sites — where illegal downloaders find their files — inched up 8 percent to 15 million.
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Good news aside, about 5 billion files were downloaded the from peer-to-peer sites, while only 500 million were purchased in 2006, according to NPD. The average illegal downloader snags eight times as many songs as the user of pay sites, says NPD entertainment industry analyst Russ Crupnick.
University of Montana freshman Ariel Cooper says his friends pay for very little of the music they download. The 18-year-old says he’s downloaded thousands of songs illegally since he discovered Napster around age 9.
“Everybody does it to save money,” he said, quickly adding that he also buys legal copies of songs he gets off illegal sites.
Chelsea Conn said none of her friends at the University of Tennessee view stealing digital music as wrong.
But the 19-year-old sophomore has erased the file-sharing programs from her computer since she paid the Recording Industry Association of America a $3,000 settlement after they threatened a lawsuit.
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RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy believes the trade group’s efforts to deter piracy — which have included an educational campaign and a barrage of lawsuits against individual scofflaws — have helped steer casual music listeners to legal services like iTunes. But while the pool of digital music thieves is growing more slowly, those “hardcore downloaders” aren’t afraid of getting caught.
“You have a base of illegal music downloaders who know that there are lawsuits happening ... but nonetheless continue to take the risk,” Lamy said.
NPD’s findings shouldn’t be seen as a slam dunk for the music industry, says the head of the research firm BigChampagne Online Media Measurement. Chief Executive Eric Garland said file-sharing sites are more established than pay sites, which means their user base has less room to grow. iTunes, for example, launched in 2003 — several years after file-sharing sites gained prominence.
“Increasingly you have the situation out there where each and every one of us out there is an iTunes customer and a music thief, but proportionally we’re more music thieves than we are iTunes customers,” he said.
Conn, the Tennessee student, said she doesn’t know of many people who have gotten rid of music-stealing software — and those who have aren’t motivated by moral qualms.
“The only reason people get rid of it is because they’re scared, not because it’s wrong,” she said.
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asap reporter Jonathan Drew is based in New York. | Only registered users can write comments.
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