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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.'"

1 of 331 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Inflation... by pestilence669 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    It may not be inflated. Remember what the music industry considers piracy: Copying your library to an MP3 player, burning a CD for your car, putting your library on a laptop, etc. The industry doesn't like the fair use provisions in copyright law, so they frequently pretend like they don't exist.

    It's not like the old days, where you buy an 8-track tape for the car and LP for the house... eventually replacing them with cassette tape and compact disc... sometimes more than once. Who's ever lost or broken an album?

    Now that people can make their own copies and backups, there's a lot less opportunity to sell the exact same product repeatedly with ever increasing costs. Digital downloads tend to result in only one sale. You can't "break" an MP3 like a scratched CD. Bummer. Time to bring back Vinyl.