According to a UK survey by Mori for AOL, 3/4 of music downloader's surveyed have at least obtained one song illegally and over half of music downloader's continue to do so. Only 1/6 of those surveyed strictly use legal services, such as iTunes to purchase their music. What makes matters worse for the entertainment industry such
as the British Phonographic Industry is that despite their on-going anti-piracy
measures and lawsuit
campaign, only 25% of those surveyed even understand the law. Those
who have been sued were faced with having to fork out up
to £6,500 (~$11,300) in out-of-court settlements to avoid having their
case brought to court.
While file sharing seems to have flattened out in the US, the BPI estimates that file sharing is rising rapidly in the UK, with 24 million tracks downloaded illegally this year compared with just 5.7 million in 2004. According to a Luton programmer, it is far too easy for children to get hold of and use file sharing services and the music industry can do little about it. It is much like trying to stop people copying tapes back in the days when home taping was quite common and most consumers had a cassette recorder.
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Three quarters of those surveyed admitted that they had illegally downloaded music at least once. But one in six said that they exclusively use paid-for legal services like iTunes and Napster to download their music. The survey also highlighted a lack of awareness about the law, despite high profile legal actions against illegal downloaders by the British Phonographic Industry. Only 25 per cent said that they understood the law. |
With such a rise in file sharing in the UK, it looks like
the BPI is going to follow the US by performing regular lawsuits.
Hopefully, a time will come when a working alternative can be found. For
example, at least France may end up legalising file sharing if the parliament's recent
amendment gets written into law. In their case, they would levy ISP subscriptions to pay the artists. While some consumers will object to having to pay for this levy, such as if they have no interest in downloading music, at least it is still a better approach than just the music industry's constant filing of lawsuits against offending users.
Feel free to discuss about file sharing and relating legal issues on our Music Download, Peer to Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues forum.
Source: vnunet - News
