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Report Claims 95% of Music Downloads Are Illegal

Posted by Soulskill on from the seems-low dept.

Un pobre guey writes "The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) press release claims that 95% of music file downloads in 2008, an estimated 40 billion files, were illegal. Oddly enough, digital music sales are up: 'The digital music business internationally saw a sixth year of expansion in 2008, growing by an estimated 25 per cent to US$3.7 billion in trade value. Digital platforms now account for around 20 per cent of recorded music sales, up from 15 per cent in 2007. Recorded music is at the forefront of the online and mobile revolution, generating more revenue in percentage terms through digital platforms than the newspaper (4%), magazine (1%) and film industries (4%) combined... Despite these developments, the music sector is still overshadowed by the huge amount of unlicensed music distributed online. Collating separate studies in 16 countries over a three-year period, IFPI estimates over 40 billion files were illegally file-shared in 2008, giving a piracy rate of around 95 per cent.'"

12 of 331 comments (clear)

  1. Inflation... by alain94040 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From the report:

    Music companiesâ(TM) digital revenues internationally grew by an estimated 25 per cent in 2008

    I can think of a long list of other industries that would love to have that kind of growth given the current economy.

    Using an inflammatory and inflated claim that "95% of all downloads are pirated" is just showing how greedy the music industry is. But we all knew that already.

    --
    FairSoftware.net -- where geeks are their own boss

    1. Re:Inflation... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      so did the artists themselves see at 25% increase as well, or are they being screwed on all sides now?

    2. Re:Inflation... by seanadams.com · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Their digital revenue may be up, but their overall sales are way down once again, because almost nobody buys CDs anymore, and that was their main gravy train.

      Of course, who wants CDs when they could have something digital instead?

    3. Re:Inflation... by moderatorrater · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The fact that the digital downloads grew from 25% and went from 20% of all sales to 25% of all sales says that overall sales remained the same (ie the digital downloads were direct cannibalization of physical purchases). The numbers themselves give that for a fact.

      Couple that with the economy right now and you could say that, since the rest of the economy has gone to shit, avoiding a decline was as good as they could have hoped for. In addition, you could say that since digital downloads make a la carte purchasing possible where physical sales require you to buy a whole cd, the popular songs are getting even more popular with digital downloads. I think that 4x the number of people downloading certain songs would be good overall for the music industry since concert sales are a big draw and everything else (generally) would remain even.

      That doesn't take into account the cost to produce a cd or the comparitive profit margins between the two. I don't know what those comparisons are and I'm not even going to guess at them since the rest of my post is based on things that are true and relatively simple extrapolations from that point, but I will say that I personally believe that the shift from physical to digital media isn't hurting their business, although it is definitely changing it. Let's call it a horizontal shift with opportunities to capitalize on the change.

  2. Sales are up so who cares by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Advice to the RIAA: forget the piracy exists. You simply are not going to ever get money from those people - get over it. On the other hand, you're making more money than every from downloads and you should work to keep growing those figures. That's the only thing you can do, frankly. Fighting piracy is like punching marshmallows.

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  3. I call bullsh*t! by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How can they be sure 95% of them are illegal? Isn't this the same group that's for years been trying to track down who is downloading what and suing them? I mean, studies like this go to the honesty of the other person. And if people will lie about something as trivial as how many sexual partners they've had, what are the odds of people telling the truth here? Besides, if 95% of music downloads were illegal, that's a pretty strong argument that downloading music should be legalized, especially considering how pervasive it is and how ineffective enforcement has been to date.

    There are three kinds of lies...

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    1. Re:I call bullsh*t! by CrackedButter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The thing is, I can download illegal music and then purchase legal music, does this mean they counted the illegal music as a lost sale even though I also bought legitimate music? How can anybody know what I'm doing. As you said there are lies...

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      Jonathanjk.com
    2. Re:I call bullsh*t! by mrsteveman1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How can they be sure 95% of them are illegal?

      This is what is going on here. The media companies decide, beforehand, how much money they should be making in a given period of time, based on voodoo bullshit as far as i can tell, then if they don't make that much money they bitch about the pirates and blame losses on them.

      So while their digital revenue and legal downloads have probably gone up, the RIAA and the companies they represent think it should be going up MORE, a lot more apparently. The problem is they are fucking wrong, and have no credibility to say anything in public anymore.

    3. Re:I call bullsh*t! by timmarhy · · Score: 4, Insightful
      they can't be sure, i suspect they have arrived at his figure by checking for pirated content on torrent sites. so really they should be saying "95% of music on torrents is pirated". Which i would have no issue with - i think they would be right.

      the problem is they then leap straight to this dream land where every download is a sale they missed out on. most of their shit isn't worth a download when it's free, let alone 15$.

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  4. One thing this shows us... by riceboy50 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you provide customer-friendly channels for obtaining music legally online, your sales will increase. Quit yer bellyachin' already.

    --
    ~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
  5. Okay, now by willoughby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...let's go through that list of "illegal" downloads & find what percentage are not available for "legal" purchase/download.

    In other words, how much of that music is not available from any "legal" source?

  6. 8 years ago... by K_E_Morr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    100% of music downloads were illegal. Sounds like the RIAA is making progress