Legal action is working

4th April 2006

Third party research suggests that the recording industry's legal campaign against illegitimate file-sharing is succeeding in deterring illegal file-sharing, raising awareness among consumers and protecting the emerging legal digital music market.

IFPI/Jupiter European Survey, January 2006

• 35 per cent of illegal file-sharers have cut back or stopped this activity, while only 14 per cent have increased it in the last 12 months.
  
  
• Three million people have either reduced or stopped illegal file-sharing in Europe. (Five million people told the survey they have reduced or stopped their illegal file-sharing, while two million users said they have increased).
  
  
• Half of illegal file-sharers who stopped or cut did so because of fear of legal consequences, 35 per cent did so because they were worried about viruses and 15 per cent because they could not find their required song on a p2p network.
  
  
• Legal buying is more popular than p2p in Europe's two major digital markets, Germany and the UK. The number of regular legal buyers (5%) exceeds the number of regular illegal file-sharers (4%).
  
  
• In Spain, where there has been no legal action, file sharing has seen a net increase - fewer file-sharers have cut back, and legal consequences are cited as being of least concern. Spain also has the highest proportion of Internet users who say they would not pay for downloads (30 per cent versus 22 per cent overall).
  
  

IFPI's survey was conducted by Jupiter/IPSOS from a sample of 3,929 randomly selected adult Internet users in five European countries: Germany, UK, Spain, France, and Sweden. The survey consisted of face-to-face interviews (telephone interviews in Sweden) in November 2005.

European Information Technology Observatory (EITO)

• Around 80 per cent of users only use one p2p application, with around 15 per cent using two and five per cent using three or more. Striking at one network through legal action thus causes massive disruption to many file-sharers. The popularity of p2p software varies by market. Emule is the most popular in France, KaZaa in Germany, WinMX in the UK and Limewire in the US
  
  
• The EITO findings are based on research conducted by Nielsen's NetMeter and MegaPanel services in January 2006.

TNS World Panel/BPI - UK, March 2006

• Recent converts to the downloading revolution are more likely to tread the legal path. More than half of people (56%) who have begun downloading in the last six months are using legal services, compared with just two-in-five people (41%) who have been downloading for more than a year.
• It is easier to attract new downloaders than convert people who are already file-sharing illegally. Only one-in-ten (11%) of current downloaders have migrated from illegal to legal services.
• This still means the overall percentage of consumers downloading music illegally is falling back:
  2003 = 17.8% 2004 = 16% 2005 = 15.4%

TNS annually investigates the music consumption habits of its 10,000 strong World panel which is a representative sample of the British population on behalf of the BPI.

Pew Internet and American Life

• Equal proportions of teenagers - previously the core constituent p2p users - now use legal services as those using p2p - about 30 per cent of teenagers in both cases. This suggests major progress for legal services, since the previous teen user ratio measured by Pew was 3:1 in favour of p2p use.

The Pew Internet/American Life survey was published on November 2nd 2005