Post by deke on Dec 16, 2010 19:19:51 GMT 1
The following is published in the latest Edition of 'Music Week'.
Deke
BPI wakes up the nation
09:21 | Thursday December 16, 2010
By Robert Ashton
The BPI has delivered a wake-up call to those who have lost sight of the UK’s illegal downloading problem with a new study that shows more than three quarters of all music tracks downloaded this year were done so illegally.
The conclusions of Digital Music Nation 2010, which for the first time harnesses Data and trends from both the legal and illegal side of the street, will make sobering reading for politicians and the media.
In the most comprehensive and sophisticated study of how people consume their music digitally the BPI estimates a total of 1.2bn illegal tracks will be downloaded by the end of this year; a figure which dwarfs the 370m tracks that will be purchased in 2010.
“To find that 76% of downloads are illegal is shocking,” says BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor, who launched the report this morning. “Despite the progress of the legal market and the high awareness of legal services illegal downloading is not decreasing.”
With these and other headline figures, which spell out the current digital landscape, Taylor wants to regain the agenda – currently dominated by the forthcoming judicial review of the DEA and problems over how the Act will work – and remind Government and others that the illegal market is still huge and holding back the development of the UK’s legitimate digital entertainment sector.
“There has been a relentless focus on the details and implementation of the Digital Economy Act,” suggests Taylor. “I think some people have lost sight of the need for urgent action. Our job is to lift their eyes.”
And the report doesn’t shy away from the hard truth. It shows:
- 1.2bn tracks illegally downloaded in 2010 from unauthorised sources
- The illegal proportion of all music tracks obtained in 2010 is 76%
- The retail value of unathorised tracks is worth £984m
- 28.8% of the UK online population are involved in illegal downloading
- 23% of the UK online population used P2P sites and software to obtain unauthorized music
- 7.7m UK internet users engaged in illegal downloading across all sources
Taylor says he believes these and other statistics in the new report will remind policy makers why the DEA is right for the digital economy and could even help bring about implementation of the Act much quicker: frustratingly the code underlying how the Act should work is long overdue, bogged down with Ofcom and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. It is now not expected until January.
When the DEA was passed earlier this year, it had initially been hoped that notification letters could be sent to illegal filesharers as early as January. But, now executives fear that if the timetable slips any further letters are unlikely to land on doormats before next winter.
The BPI’s move comes just days after the shadow culture secretary Ivan Lewis suggested the Government creates a cross party forum to help grow the UK’s music and creative sectors.
Deke
BPI wakes up the nation
09:21 | Thursday December 16, 2010
By Robert Ashton
The BPI has delivered a wake-up call to those who have lost sight of the UK’s illegal downloading problem with a new study that shows more than three quarters of all music tracks downloaded this year were done so illegally.
The conclusions of Digital Music Nation 2010, which for the first time harnesses Data and trends from both the legal and illegal side of the street, will make sobering reading for politicians and the media.
In the most comprehensive and sophisticated study of how people consume their music digitally the BPI estimates a total of 1.2bn illegal tracks will be downloaded by the end of this year; a figure which dwarfs the 370m tracks that will be purchased in 2010.
“To find that 76% of downloads are illegal is shocking,” says BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor, who launched the report this morning. “Despite the progress of the legal market and the high awareness of legal services illegal downloading is not decreasing.”
With these and other headline figures, which spell out the current digital landscape, Taylor wants to regain the agenda – currently dominated by the forthcoming judicial review of the DEA and problems over how the Act will work – and remind Government and others that the illegal market is still huge and holding back the development of the UK’s legitimate digital entertainment sector.
“There has been a relentless focus on the details and implementation of the Digital Economy Act,” suggests Taylor. “I think some people have lost sight of the need for urgent action. Our job is to lift their eyes.”
And the report doesn’t shy away from the hard truth. It shows:
- 1.2bn tracks illegally downloaded in 2010 from unauthorised sources
- The illegal proportion of all music tracks obtained in 2010 is 76%
- The retail value of unathorised tracks is worth £984m
- 28.8% of the UK online population are involved in illegal downloading
- 23% of the UK online population used P2P sites and software to obtain unauthorized music
- 7.7m UK internet users engaged in illegal downloading across all sources
Taylor says he believes these and other statistics in the new report will remind policy makers why the DEA is right for the digital economy and could even help bring about implementation of the Act much quicker: frustratingly the code underlying how the Act should work is long overdue, bogged down with Ofcom and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. It is now not expected until January.
When the DEA was passed earlier this year, it had initially been hoped that notification letters could be sent to illegal filesharers as early as January. But, now executives fear that if the timetable slips any further letters are unlikely to land on doormats before next winter.
The BPI’s move comes just days after the shadow culture secretary Ivan Lewis suggested the Government creates a cross party forum to help grow the UK’s music and creative sectors.
