More music consumers using legal downloads
Mon Jun 20, 2005 09:04 PM ET

By Ray Bennett

LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) – Around 35% of music consumers now download tracks legally via the Internet and the percentage will soon pass the 40% who have pirated music, according to a new survey released Monday by Entertainment Media Research.

The online research company used data collected from 4000 music consumers to compile the 2006 Digital Music Survey in association with media law firm Olswang.

Fear of prosecution, Internet viruses, and inferior quality were cited as the main deterrents against illegal downloading, the report said. Nearly two-thirds of music consumers said immediate availability was the key reason for buying tracks online.

"The findings indicate that the music industry is approaching a strategic milestone with the population of legal downloaders close to exceeding that of pirates," Entertainment Media Research chief executive Russell Hart said.

John Enser, senior partner at Olswang, added in a statement: "Clear
deterrents to illegal downloading are emerging, with fear of prosecution running high, and close behind is the sense that unauthorized downloading is ‘not fair on the artists,’ suggesting that the industry’s messages, led by the British Phonographic Industry, are being communicated effectively."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

This is the kind of circle jerk bullshit spread like oil from the Exxon
Valdez all over the media to try and insure the labels’ business PLAN comports with
reality. I’ve written AT LENGTH why this statistical analysis is wrong.
Even accepting the percentages, which I don’t, I mean how many people admit to
stealing, people tend to take MANY tracks from P2P services and buy one or two
at iTunes. But, if this came out, if the truth came out, it would be shown
that the emperor has no clothes. Instead you’ve got an entertainment industry
preaching to its constituents, computer ignorant and too busy to actually TRY
these new technologies, rallying the troops like in some kind of mind-control
Eastern European country of the last century.

As for deterrence…how come P2P usage is going UP? If P2P usage is going
up, does this send the message that it’s unfair to the artists??
I hate to litter your inbox with the same old rant over and over again, but
my goal is to inform you how these guys OPERATE! They believe if they just say
it again and again, it will be true. Counting on the ignorance of the media
to repeat their message. I mean I’m no conspiracy theorist, I’m not someone
who believes major media gets it wrong ALL the time, but when I read this
detritus in Reuters it DOES make me wonder what happened to reporting. I mean with so much bottom line pressure, news outlets have cancelled anybody who does
research, anybody who thinks, to the point where distortions and lies are
printed constantly. I mean if the "New York Times" apologizes for not getting the
Iraq story right do you think the media might not be getting it right on
P2P/new distribution methods?

This is the world we live in. Where smiling figureheads of monied
corporations create the truth they want. It just plain sucks.