iPods half full of illegal tracks
Research conducted by the University of Hertfordshire has uncovered that 48% of the music stored on the average digital music player has been downloaded illegally. The figure rises to almost 80% amongst teenagers. The extent of illegal downloading by one of the largest survey of youth music ownership has shocked the industry, which is struggling to cope with declining CD sales.
Former Undertones front man Fergal Sharkey and now Chief Executive of British Music Rights said "I was one of those people who went around the back of the bike shed with songs I had taped off the radio the night before. But this totally dwarfs that, and anything we expected." His comments certainly seem to reflect a growing trend, as CD sales declined by 10% in 2007.
The study also shows:
63% of people illegally download
Just 15% of respondents are persuaded not to upload because of the risk of getting caught
95% engage in some form of copying
Have you ever downloaded a track to your ipod illegally and if so how much of your music collection does it account for?
And as for the person who said "it's hardly breaking the law"....well, sorry to burst your bubble, but it is.
It's not a case of how much money people have to buy things. If you can't afford something, you don't buy it. If you can, you do. The excuse of having a right to steal because you're not "rich" is nonsense. I'm not rich, but an mp3 is the cost of a couple of cigarettes, not exactly the stuff bankruptcies are made of....
I seem to remember that nearly 70% of the cost of a CD goes to the government, here's a thought get them to drop their rip-off percentage. For that reason I buy a lot of CD's second hand and at boot sales.
Also I have been trying to get some old back catalogue stuff from the 70's and 80's, so i'd like to ask behold_the_curmudgen where the hell people get off trying to change £29.50 on Amazon for what is essentially B A Robertson's Greatest Hits. Now tell me how cheap CD's are
all music should be readily available and should be cheap
so copying music like is bad! we all know we are not supposed to, generaly i dont althow some times i do for two reasons #1 i like to try befour i buy, so somtimes i will copy music if i like it ill then buy it if i dont like it i delete it. #2 i often but dvd's so i have already paid for the rights to the music on them, i will then copy the dvd soundtrack rather than buy it! are either of these things that bad? not realy it means i buy more music and dvd's
Someone bought the original copy, all they are doing it sharing with there unknowing cyber friends, whats the big deal.
If you think I'm paying £12 for a CD that only has 3 tracks i like, you can think again, i would rather spend that money on something useful, like dope.
Wow... If I gave them my iPod that figure would rise again...
Funnily enough, when you buy an iPod/MP3 Player/CD's, you pay a small amount of tax on it known as "pirate tax", which gets given back to the artists, so technically you are still funding their work...
... and if they are taxing it then it can hardly be called stealing :P
As a warning to those who do: Downloading it form p2p managers, such as limewire or Edonkey could result you in a massive fine, due to the fact that you're using music files that companies have lisenced and therefore could result you in a big bill. There was a recent yahoo news about a girl who used a spice girls song and was fined £3000...
So I do encourage buyin CD's unless you know a safe way to download, or ask a friend who has downloaded to burn you a CD so they get the fine XD
I don't download illegal stuff but at times I've thought about it as what I want isn't availiable to get online. Watch the industry bleat now after this research has been published.
I don't approve of theft, but the fact of the matter is that everyone knows that CDs cost pennies to make and that the only people profiting from their manufacturer is the big wigs such like Simon Cowell. This is why internet based, or home record producing artists are becoming more and more popular - the average joe doesn't mind paying the artist, in fact most of the time they *want to*...but they know when they're buying a CD that the artist doesn't see the money. Until that is rectified, illegal downloading and copying will continue. Fact.
i still buy cd's occasionally if i really like the artist and i want a proper hard copy of the music.
and at the end of the day...why pay for things you can easily get for free? We invented money after all ;D
Or perhaps the music industry should simply back off, stop worrying about making money as it's primary incentive, stop producing crap like pop idol and let good artists produce decent music that people will want to buy.
If I download music, it's for my personal use - I don't try to profit in any way off it. The musicians should be about getting their music heard rather than cashing in as much as possible.