spacegrass used our news submit to tell us that according to new research, European music downloader's are just as likely to purchase compact discs as anyone else. spacegrass wrote
"Apparently, the European Internet user is a bit more morally upright than
their American counterparts. 🙂 Everyday, I am seeing more articles giving a
much more balanced view on the subject of file-sharing, and more and more
articles making the points that we have been saying all
along ."
So far, Europe is safe from individual user lawsuits for sharing music over the Internet. The major music labels here are trying to educate consumers that downloading copyrighted media is illegal. The way European consumers use peer-to-peer services also differ from the U.S. Downloader's in North America prefer Kazaa and mainly share and download music. Europeans prefer to WinMX and eDonkey and are more likely to share and download other content such as films, music videos and software. Peer-to-peer software usage is on the increase and many new broadband subscribers are quick to start using P2P software for downloads. With the increase in broadband connections and bandwidth, the movie industry will have to start learning from the music industry's mistakes and realise that movie downloaders may be their biggest customers.
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The image belies the notion of the slacker teenager trawling the Internet for free music to hoard. They are regular shoppers in record stores today, and they are very likely to buy song downloads in the future, the researchers said. "There are strong music fans within the file-sharing community," Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Jupiter Research in London, told Reuters. "They are more likely to listen to digital radio and visit artist Web sites. There is compelling evidence that this group is the bedrock community for those willing to pay for legitimate (online) music services in the future," Mulligan added. The music industry has waged an all-out war on Internet file sharing and CD burning, which it blames for a three-year decline in sales of recorded music. In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents the world's big five music companies, Universal Music, Warner Music, EMI, BMG, and Sony Music, has begun suing individual music-swappers. In Europe, industry trade bodies and the major music labels have tried a gentler tactic, promoting industry-backed services and educating consumers that downloading copyright-protected media is an illegal activity. |
While doing my network computing Degree at college (Ireland), I did not know of any student who did not download or share music. The peer-to-peer software usage changed each year at college. In first year, it was pure FTP and HTTP downloads, 2nd year was Kazaa and Audiogalaxy, 3rd year was Morpheus and WinMX and 4th year was Kazaa-lite as the official Kazaa required administrative rights to install and the administration staff kept deleting WinMX and Morpheus off user's accounts! Most of the mates I knew well purchased CDs fairly often and nearly all of them sampled downloaded music before making their purchase.
Movie downloads are on the increase here in Ireland and
students began downloading movies at college during my final year, but that did
not stop anyone from going out frequently to the Cinema. In
fact, some actually sampled downloaded movies to see if it was worth going
to the Cinema to watch a particular movie!
Source: Reuters - London
