wax&wires

95% of Music Downloads are Illegal: IFPI

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) recently released a report concluding that despite initiatives by the music industry, 95% of music downloads continue to be illegal.

The IFPI, considered by some to be the global version of the RIAA, says that 40 billion songs were illegally downloaded in 2008. Those songs don’t necessarily translate into lost sales, as we’ve seen recently, but the IFPI estimates that 10% of illegal downloads are equivalent to lost sales. Where they got that number, I’m not quite sure, but let’s trust them at that and say that there were 4 billion lost sales worldwide this past year. That’s a serious amount of revenue!

We’ve now seen the EU, France, and even the RIAA here in the states consider a “three strikes” rule with regards to copyright infringement. That would mean 3 offenses and your internet would be disconnected by your ISP. The measures were shot down in the European Parliament, and I’m glad. It’s too tough to prove that any one individual was the one responsible for the file sharing. People have a right to have an open wireless network, and shouldn’t necessarily be held responsible for the actions of others on thier network. I’ve always been in favor of offering up a solution to the problem, rather than simply punishment for misdeeds.

Here’s some stats from the report [via hothardware]

• Seven out of ten (72%) UK music consumers would stop illegally downloading if told to do so by their ISP (Entertainment Media Research, 2008)

• Seven out of ten (74%) French consumers agree internet account disconnection is a better approach than fines and criminal sanctions (IPSOS, France, May 2008)

• Eight out of ten (82%) American teenagers familiar with the law think sanctions for illegal downloading are appropriate; 57 per cent of those unfamiliar with the law agree (KRC US, January 2008)

• 90 per cent of consumers would stop illegally file-sharing after two warnings from their ISP (IPSOS, France, May 2008)

Those stats might be a bit misconstrued though, as not all internet users engage in any file swapping at all. According to the IFPI, only 18 percent of Europeans admit to engaging in file-swapping. 64% of internet users in the UK, US, and France said that they would stop swapping if their ISP sent them a warning letter. So the question is not how the general public (that 64% for example) would respond to a warning letter from their ISP, but rather how P2P users would respond. According to a study by The Leading Question and Music Ally, only 41% of file sharers said that a warning would get them to stop. That means that 6 out of 10 file sharers would completely disregard a warning from their ISP that their internet use was being monitored. Once the stakes were raised to an internet disconnection warning from their ISP, 63 percent of file sharers said that they would stop sharing. That’s the real astonishing number for me because it means that nearly 4 out of every 10 file sharers would absolutely not stop file sharing even when threatened with disconnection.

All those numbers further my point that the solution to the piracy debacle is not litigation or reprimanding abusers, but it needs to come in an alternative option for content acquisition; a legal process of downloading content that provides a better user experience than P2P clients, at minimal to no cost. If the IFPI’s numbers are accurate with regards to how many songs are shared per year, even a small decline in file sharing will yield a significant gain in revenue for the ever ailing industry.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 8:55 pm. It is filed under wax and tagged with downloads, file sharing, ifpi, illegal, p2p, riaa, torrent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.