P2P users purchase 4.5 times more & issues with MP3 phones

29 Jul 05 00:58 by Seán Byrne in category Uncategorized To news archive

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While the music industries continue its lawsuit campaign against those who do the most file sharing, some recent research found that the music industries are likely suing their best customers without realising it. The study by the research firm The Leading Question revealed that those who download music from file sharing services spend an average of 4.5 times that on legal download purchases than what the average music fans spend. Legal download sales have risen by three times since early 2005, reaching 10 million sales in the UK over the 1st half of 2005.

The average amount spent on legal downloads is Â£5.52 per month for those who download music from P2P networks, compared to an average of Â£1.27 for other music fans. While the BPI welcomes the findings, they claim that with independent research, a third of downloader’s purchase more music while the remaining two-thirds or so purchase less music. As a result, the BPI will continue its fight against the sharing of copyrighted music.

When it comes to buying an MP3 player, a survey amoung 600 music fans revealed that around a third would be interested in purchasing a dedicated MP3 player, while only 8% would be interested in getting a mobile phone with a built-in MP3 player instead. The most common worries and complaints include battery life, higher risk of loss of handset (and music collection) as well as how quickly consumers change their phones. Hill and DamnedIfIknow both used our news submit to let us know about the following news:

src="http://www.cdfreaks.com/contentimages/newsimages/1204502100" align=right border=0
>People who illegally share music files online are also big spenders on legal music downloads, research suggests.
Digital music research firm The Leading Question found that they spent four and a half times more on paid-for music downloads than average fans.

Rather than taking legal action against downloaders, the music industry needs to entice them to use legal alternatives, the report said.

According to the music industry, legal downloads have tripled during 2005.

In the first half of 2005, some 10 million songs have been legally downloaded.

Music ‘myth’

More needs to be done to capitalise on the power of the peer-to-peer networks that many music downloaders still use, said the report’s authors.

The study found that regular downloaders of unlicensed music spent an average of Â£5.52 a month on legal digital music.

This compares to just Â£1.27 spent by other music fans.

Read the href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4718249.stm" target=_new
>full article here.

If the research by The Leading Question finds that the average P2P downloader purchases 4.5 times more music downloads than a typical music fan, I wonder how the BPI comes up with the opposite fact, unless the 1/3 who do end up purchasing more end up doing so to the point where the overall average raises by 4.5 times that of those who only use legitimate services to download music. Then again, the BPI may be covering all music and not just downloads, so while one may purchase more music online than the average, they may be purchasing far less music than they did previously on physical media.

While mobile phones with a built-in MP3 player do offer the advantage of not having to carry a separate item for music, the other survey does point out the two drawbacks that cannot easily be overcome. Battery life may be the main concern, since once the battery runs down, it can also put the user out of touch, unless the phone disables MP3 playback once the battery falls to a certain level. Also, unlike a dedicated MP3 player which typically lasts two or more years, consumers often change their phone every year or sooner, so it is not seen as such as a special feature as with getting a dedicated player.

Feel free to discuss and find out more about file sharing and legal music download services on our Music Download, Peer to Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues.

Source: BBC News – Technology

3 Comments

psychoace: Posts: 351; Posted on: 29 Jul 05 15:39

I have had two zen micro's both died after a month because of my bad hands. I had a rca lyra for 2 years dropped it millions of times it still worked when i sold it to someone. I am not buying a new mp3 player until they can provide sturdiness.

Rhelic: Posts: 302; Posted on: 29 Jul 05 16:58

No surprisise here.... People who heavily downloaded MP3s in the first place did so because they were music enthusiasts. Downloading still doesn't replace your favorite albums or artists. Downloading had very little affect on my buying habits, in fact it has caused me to buy CDs I wouldn't have done in the past because I was able to checkout artists, many of them uncommon and are only in specialty music stores. I use to buy at least 1 cd per week and when Napster came into the scene, it's possible I was a very naughty boy. Now-a-days I don't do that much music, I switched to DVDs for awhile but lately my entertainment of choice are 2nd hand video games.
[edited by Rhelic on 29.07.2005 17:00]

Rhelic: Posts: 302; Posted on: 29 Jul 05 17:04

On a tangent, it's comical that it took a 3rh party (Apple) to show the RIAA that if people were given a decent digital solution to music (iTunes) then they would eat it up. Somehow, I still don't think the RIAA really understands this all yet. Perhaps the RIAA needs to work on a campaign to improve their image. I mean the people who had to pay fines for illegal downloads, perhaps the RIAA should take every dollar from their "fines" and apply it to an iTunes (or other) account, even more proper, give them access to the "stolen" songs via a legal download service so that the people could properly own the songs they, indirectly paid for via fines. Of course it would take a massive amount of man hours for somebody to pick & choose all those songs for each person fined. But hey, it sounds good on paper

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