Music piracy is evil and those who illegally download and share music with each other are the devil’s spawn. Right? Wrong. In fact, a new survey shows that those who partake of a little filesharing every now and then actually spend more on music than anyone else. So rather than chasing them down with what sometimes borders on a vengeful vendetta, the music industry should perhaps be nurturing these people and appreciating them as music lovers.

Unfortunately there is little chance of that ever happening because the bulk of the music industry is still showing itself up as a slow moving dinosaur unable or unwilling to move with the times.

According to The Independent, the think tank Demos surveyed 1,008 people aged between 18 and 50. Only 10 percent of the respondents admitted downloading music illegally from the Internet, although if those results are repeated across the U.K. (where the poll took place) that’s almost seven million people.

Of the people admitting to downloading, 83 percent claim that they buy more music as a result, with 42 percent claiming their reason for filesharing was to “try before they buy.” Overall, those who download illegally spend on average £77 ($120) a year on music – which is £33 ($55) more than the average spent by those who stay lily white and abide by the record labels’ rules.

Mark Mulligan of Forrester Research suggested:

The people who file-share are the ones who are interested in music. They use file-sharing as a discovery mechanism. We have a generation of young people who don’t have any concept of music as a paid-for commodity. You need to have it at a price point you won’t notice.

Indeed, the survey suggested that people would be much less likely to fileshare if the cost of buying songs and albums legitimately was less. It all comes down to value for money and whether people believe they are being ripped off or not. The more aggrieved they are at the price of music the more likely they are to find alternative sources for obtaining music.

A government study from two years ago suggested that music piracy actually increased record sales, and now this. How long are the record companies going to insist on hanging on to their dying business model while casting around for someone to blame as they slowly fall to their knees in capitulation? Surely it’s time they worked out a new, middle-way strategy and forged a new path that better suits all parties involved in the industry.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 9:38 pm under Crime, Internet, Legal, Music, Opinion, Piracy, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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