Illegal Broadband Music Downloads Still Popular

A new music consumption survey has revealed that illegal music downloads using broadband are still as popular as ever with the younger generation.

The findings are in contrast to a study last month that found that illegal downloading was becoming less popular with younger people thanks to streaming sites such as YouTube and Spotify.

The new survey (the Annual Academic Survey) was commissioned by UK Music and investigated the music consumption behaviour and experience of 1,800 young people aged between 14 and 24.

The results showed that there had been very little change since 2008 in terms of how popular illegal downloading was. Around 61% of the survey base said that they still downloaded files using P2P networks and torrent trackers.

Furthermore, a staggering 83% of those people were doing so on a weekly basis.

It seems that while they know that it is wrong, they ignore the illegal aspect of sharing and downloading music.

The CEO of UK Music, Feargal Sharkey, said, “This is the second year we have run this survey with the University Of Hertfordshire’s Music and Entertainment Industry Management Research Group. As with last year’s results, this snapshot of how importantly young people rate music, how they are accessing it, consuming it, sharing it and copying it, makes for fascinating reading”.

Sharkey continued, “Ironically, for me, perhaps the biggest change is context. Over the past twelve months, the licensed digital music market has diversified enormously – epitomised by competition in the download market and the traction being gained by streaming services. Meanwhile, the prospect of commercial partnerships with ISPs lies tantalisingly on the horizon. And, of course, the UK’s artists and creative community continue to break new ground: innovating, experimenting and engaging with fans in all manner of new exciting and ways”.

“Clearly, the shape of our entire business will continue to evolve. However, we will achieve nothing if we do not work with music fans, and young music fans in particular. They are hugely demanding in their needs, but collectively we must rise to that challenge”.

Sharkey added, “We ignore engagement at our peril. That message is loud and clear”.

The survey did reveal some good news with many young people indicating that they would be willing to pay for an unlimited ‘all you can eat’ music download service.