Things have been looking up for the music industry starting with the news back in February that global music revenue had seen it’s first increase in thirteen years. Now, a recent report by Ofcom shows that illegal downloads have slowed in the past twelve months. Researchers believe that this trend is a result of listeners replacing illegal music downloads with the use of online streaming services.
In fact, the number of illegally obtained tracks fell by a third in the last year. It is estimated that only 199 million tracks were pirated this March compared to a much higher 301 million in March of 2012. In the same time frame, the use of music streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora has rapidly increased suggesting that people are choosing this method of listening instead.
The UK study highlights some growing concerns as well. Although numbers have dcreased, one in six respondents still claimed to have illegally streamed or downloaded music in the past year. The report also found that a small number of pirates are responsible for a large percentage of illegally obtained music; 2% of pirates were accountable for almost three quarters of overall pirated content.
The following table shows the reasons the top 10% of pirates gave as to why they choose to pirate music instead of legally obtaining it.
The next table shows what the same group of pirates said would make them stop infringing.
