More on that survey by British Music Rights and the University Of Hertfordshire we touched on yesterday, and a slightly more upbeat overview from BMR chief Feargal Sharkey that the one we pulled out of the Daily Telegraph yesterday.
As previously reported, the survey of 14-24 year olds revealed that the average kid of the street has over 800 illegally download tracks on their MP3 player, and has no problem sharing their digital music collections with others. Then again, it wasn't all doom and gloom in the stats.
For starters, the survey said that the average respondent had 1770 tracks on their iPod, over half of which were pirated. While that means over 800 were illegally downloaded, it also means that 800 odd had been paid for, either as legit downloads or ripped off CD, which sounds a pretty good stat to me. While the average teenager when I was that age wouldn't have owned 1770 tracks, probably more than half their record collection had been taped off the radio or off friends, so on percentage terms perhaps things aren't that much worse than before. Perhaps.
But more importantly, the respondents also said they were still interested in buying CDs for their favourite artists, and that they (well, 80% of them) would be willing to pay to use a good legit P2P file sharing service. Whether said respondents would stand by that commitment once such a service is available remains to be seen, but it is good news for that legit P2P service that is about to launch, Qtrax, and the labels and publishers participating in it.
Anyway, however you interpret the specifics, the survey definitely reaffirms that the music market has changed dramatically in recent years, and that the music business has to continue to adapt to survive long term. Sharkey says this: "The music industry should draw great optimism from this groundbreaking survey. First and foremost, it is quite clear that this young and tech-savvy demographic is as crazy about and engaged with music as any previous generation. Contrary to popular belief, they are also prepared to pay for it too. But only if offered the services they want. That message comes through loud and clear".
He continued: "These responses also pull no punches in highlighting how dramatically music consumption has changed, and continues to change; certainly in the case of copying, sharing and recommendation. Technology has greatly increased the value of these activities - but it is clear that the financial gains are not necessarily feeding back to the creators: artists, composers and songwriters. How the music industry repositions itself here, and builds new mutually-beneficial commercial partnerships with technology providers remains the key challenge ahead".
David Bahanovich, Head of Music and Entertainment Industry Management Programme at University of Hertfordshire, adds: "As we witness the seismic changes to the music industry's landscape, timely and targeted research is not only welcome, but is of critical importance. Our recent collaboration with BMR has proven very fruitful and our findings will be of great interest to both industry and government. We are committed to helping the industry find solutions through groundbreaking research, and this is only the first of a series of projects with BMR addressing some of the key issues confronting our industry during this unprecedented time of change".