The Australian Record Industry Association (Aria) yesterday said that 3.6m Australians made copies of CDs in the last six months, and a further 3.4m Australians had downloaded tracks illegally, meaning more than 11% of music in Australia is obtained through illegal means.
ARIA chief executive, Stephen Peach, linking the 8.9% drop in record sales last year with the copying/downloading trend, said: "Ultimately, the consumer is the loser. File-sharing and CD burning contributes to the slow but steady weakening of the local and international music industry."
Aria's survey revealed that 80% of respondents said they wouldn't buy an album if they had a pirated copy in their collection. 50% said the same thing about downloaded albums.