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Filesharing going away.....

The IFPI, the big music industry body released research which says legal download surpass illegal downloads.

Our research at the same time says the opposite. As does that of p2p research company, BigChampagne.

DRM vs Consumers

I had a chance to speak at the MusicTank DRM event on Wednesday night. The keynote was by Richard Gooch, a Deputy Director at the IFPI, the international music body which looks out for the record companies. The discussion was focused on protecting intellectual property versus the consumer's right to play their music on various devices.

It turned out to be a lot more balanced panel than I was expecting and both sides were represented but at the end very little progress had been made. The IFPI guy still loved DRM, the consumer folks still said it stood on consumer's toes.

There was a lot of discussion about consumers voting with their feet if they disliked the DRM mechanisms a download service applied. But it's just not like that. Our music industry research shows that consumers are twice as likely to download illegally when they hit a problem with DRM.

There's also a perception from the pro-DRM side that those who download illegally don't want to pay for music. That's simply not true. You'll always find that for some people any price is too expensive but most music fans want an easy to use service with tracks they want and without the risks of viruses and legal action they can face on the illegal networks.

And that's what they can't always find at the minute. Why can't I use my Creative Zen with iTunes? Why can't I use my iPod with Napster? Why can't I burn that track to a CD for my car? These are problems that people face every day with the legitimate download services and you're still paying a similar price that you'd pay for a CD. And you're paying a lot more compared to an unrestricted version from a filesharing network. A few small improvements to the download services will attract more users back from the filesharing networks than any amount of legal action ever will.

iPod owners more honest

We released our research today that shows out of all the owners of digital music players it's iPod owners who are the most honest. With the iPod having nearly half the music player market we thought it'd be cool to compare your iPodder to your average music fan. What was the result?

Well, they're substantially less likely to download using filesharing software with only 7% of iPod people downloading illegally compared to 25% on average. And they're more likely to be buying CDs with your everyday iPodder buying 2.3 albums a month compared to the average of 1.8.

Why is this? Well Apple fanatics would likely argue that the zen-like experience of Apple technology puts them in a spiritually balanced place which allows them more empathy with struggling artists and I certainly can't disprove this but I'd argue that it's down to Apple reaching a more mainstream audience.

Everybody knows the iPod. Nearly everybody has one. And that skews the userbase more towards a mainstream user and away from your average gadget fan. Your aunt who got an iPod doesn't know how to download and even if she did would she be likely to try it?

Other things that stood out was that iPods are pretty evenly split between male and female owners and that only half of them are regular users of the iTunes store.

The report is free - download it here