Burning, sharing hurts AU music sales: Survey - News - Business

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Burning, sharing hurts AU music sales: Survey

By James Pearce, ZDNet Australia
July 16, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Burning-sharing-hurts-AU-music-sales-Survey/0,139023166,120276293,00.htm

The Australian Record Industry Association has released survey figures it claims supports the theory that CD burning and online file sharing is having a negative impact on album sales.

The 15 minute telephone survey of 1,001 people aged 10 years and above -- released today -- claims that 3.6 million Australian illegally burnt a CD in the six months before the survey, and 1.8 million Australians illegitimately downloaded music files via a file sharing service in the month prior to the survey.

Stephen Peach, the chief executive officer of ARIA, admitted that people who made back-up copies of legally purchased CDs or compilation recordings for their own use were included in the figures of people who had copied music illegally, and denied the activity was acceptable.

"Once you legitimise home copying then everything becomes home copying," he said.

Peach said the recording industry both in Australia and overseas was looking at a number of ways of fighting illegal copying. He said litigation against file-sharing software companies would be continued, but said ARIA had not considered following its U.S. counterpart in suing individual file swappers.

"The Australian record industry has not even considered whether we would go down that path and we hope if we turn this [problem of illegal copying] around we won't have to consider it," said Peach.

"There is a big job for us to do on the education front," said Peach. The survey revealed that 32 percent of respondents were unaware that it was illegal to copy music files onto a blank CD or computer hard drive without the permission of the copyright owner.

A higher proportion of the younger generation didn't know it was illegal, with 49 percent of under-25's responding they knew the activity was illegal.

"In my experience, most people like to do the right thing most of the time," said Peach, indicating why he thought an education campaign would be successful in reducing illegal copying.

The problem for the recording industry was summed up by Adrian Goldsmith, director of Quantum Market Research who conducted the survey. "A large proportion of those who buy a large proportion of the music don't understand that what they're doing is illegal," he said.

The survey revealed that the under-25 age group -- traditionally the backbone of the music industry -- have vastly different opinions as to what is illegal behaviour compared to the general population. The main differences in opinion were:

57 percent of the general population agreed that burning music without paying for it is like stealing, while only 35 percent of under-25's agreed.
49 percent of the general population agreed that downloading music from the Internet without permission is like stealing from a record store, while only 33 percent of under-25's agreed.
46 percent of the general population agree that too many people are able to make copies of music and that technology should be changed to stop this, while only 28 percent of under-25's agreed with this view.

The survey did not ask the respondents whether they had purchased a CD after hearing a sample of it on the Web or from a friend. A 2000 Price Waterhouse Coopers consumer technology survey of five countries revealed that 25 percent of Australian Internet users had downloaded music from the Internet, with the majority claiming that accessing music online had exposed them to new artists or new types of music. 78 percent of Australians who had downloaded music said that doing so had prompted them to buy a particular CD or tape.

Other statistics to emerge from the survey include:

21 percent of respondents had used a file sharing service, with 11 percent using one in the month prior to the survey. In the under-25's group the figure was 26 percent. The average volume downloaded by individuals was 19.6 files (32.4 files for the 18-24 age group), with 51 percent of file sharers indicating they 'never' or 'rarely' purchased the music they have downloaded, while 37 percent only buy 'sometimes'. Over 50 percent of file sharers burn their music onto CD or transfer to an MP3 player.
22 percent of respondents had burned a CD in the six months prior to the survey, in the under-25's group the figure was 40 percent. Of this group, 54 percent burned material from their own CDs, 34 percent from borrowed CDs and 28 percent from music downloaded from the Internet.
40 percent of the general population had received a burnt CD in the 12 months prior to the survey (69 percent for the 18-24 age group), with 82 percent claiming they would 'never' or 'rarely' buy a CD they had received.
Illegitimate channels account for 10.7 percent of all music acquired by the general population, for the under-17's group this figure is 31 percent, for 18-24 yr the figure is 21 percent.