Andre Yoskowitz
19 Dec 2009 13:11
According to a new British Phonographic Industry (BPI) survey, illegal downloading is not decreasing at all despite a new plethora of legal alternatives.
BPI CEO Geoff Taylor specifically cited a rise in downloads from blogs and newsgroups and called the results of the survey "very disappointing." The online poll surveyed 3000 people in the UK between the ages of 16 and 54.
Perhaps even more notably, users that currently downloaded from unauthorized services even said they planned to increase their pirating in the next six months.
Adds Taylor: "There are now more than 35 legal digital music services in the UK, offering music fans a great choice of ways to get music legally. It's disappointing that levels of illegal peer-to-peer use remain high despite this and the publicity surrounding imminent measures to address the problem. It's vital that those measures come into force as quickly as possible. The growth in other, non-peer-to-peer methods of downloading music illegally is a concern, and highlights the importance of including a mechanism in the Digital Economy Bill to deal with threats other than peer-to-peer."
Taylor did add that "digital singles" continued to increase with 117 million songs sold legally online in 2009. The BPI says despite that number, over 1 billion songs were downloaded illegally in the same period.