AfterDawn: Tech news

Spotify leading to a decline in music piracy, at least in Sweden

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 29 Sep 2011 12:47 User comments (2)

Spotify leading to a decline in music piracy, at least in Sweden

According to a new report, it appears that music piracy has consistently fallen since 2009, thanks to the popularity of Spotify, at least in Sweden.
Overall piracy has fallen 25 percent in two years, says the Swedish Music industry.

Spotify, which is free with some restrictions, has millions of tracks from all the major labels and independents. Premium versions give mobile access and unlimited streaming to users.

The recent Swedish study showed streaming as the preferred way to listen to music, with 40 percent of responders saying they now use a streaming service compared to just 10 percent who download music legally. 23 percent still regularly pirate, but that number has been dropping.

Says Music Sweden's CEO Elizabet Widlund (via Freak):



The long-term trend is a sharp increase in legal streaming while we see a reduction in illegal file sharing and downloading. When 800,000 Swedes are willing to pay for streaming music, there is clearly a market for more legal players in the digital music market. We encourage diversity of music services as it will provide better conditions for both those who create music and those who listen to it.


Despite the encouraging numbers for the music industry, a significant portion of streamers (30 percent) said they would go back to piracy or free services like YouTube if Spotify, MOG, etc began charging.

Previous Next  

2 user comments

130.9.2011 12:21

As this shows, people would prefer to keep within the law. It is only when the industry makes it too expensise to stay within the law do they pirate. Well that is true for many but not all of us. This and Pandora are probably experiments to see what the public will bear.

Some will redily shell out $1/tune especially if the icards are gifts. Most persons do not want to pay that much of their hard earned money for low quality music.

230.9.2011 14:06

Wow these guys must not be related to RIAA cause you'd never hear them admit this...lol

Comments have been disabled for this article.

Latest news

Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets (06 Jun 2023 9:19)
Roomba Combo j7+ is the very first Roomba model to combine robot vacuum with mopping features. And Roomba Combo j7+ does all that with a very clever trick, which tackles the problem with mopping and carpets. But is it any good? We found out.
Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations (02 May 2023 3:38)
Neato Robotics has ceased its operations. American robot vacuum pioneer founded in 2005 has finally called it quits and company will cease its operations and sales. Only a skeleton crew will remain who will keep the servers running until 2028.
5 user comments
How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp (20 Mar 2023 1:25)
The world's most popular messaging platform, Meta-owned WhatsApp has enabled sending messages to yourself. While at first, this might seem like an odd feature, it can be very useful in a lot of situations. ....
18 user comments
How to Enable Bluetooth on Stadia Controller How to Enable Bluetooth on Stadia Controller (11 Feb 2023 1:04)
Google shut down its streaming game service Stadia late last month and this means that some people have Stadia controllers lying around that seem to be of no use. That is fortunately not the ....
2 user comments
Guide: How to Kick Unwanted Guests from Your Netflix Account Guide: How to Kick Unwanted Guests from Your Netflix Account (26 Jan 2023 2:14)
Sharing a Netflix account with a person in a different location is possible and indeed very common, although the company doesn't necessarily enjoy this behavior from their customers. However, ....

News archive