IFPI: 95% of all music downloads are unauthorized

By Jacqueline Emigh | Published January 16, 2009, 11:08 AM

Although sales of digital music are increasing worldwide, the global recording industry's representatives are now calling on ISPs to temporarily shut down music pirates' Internet accounts if all else fails.

A large majority of digital music downloads are "unauthorized" -- meaning, no payment is made to either artists or producers. This according to a report issued Thursday by the IFPI trade association, which represents the recording industry worldwide.

Despite all the piracy, though, paid sales of digital music grew to the tune of 25% to $3.7 billion worldwide in 2008, even with the economic crisis that emerged in the latter part of the year. In fact, digital music platforms accounted for around 20% of all recorded music sales last year, up from roughly 15% in 2007, according to the IFPI's newly released Digital Music Report 2009.

The report cites Nielsen SoundScan data as showing that digital album sales in the US alone rose 32% in 2008, to a total of 66 million albums. The US is the world's largest consumer of paid digital music, accounting for about half of all "digital music market value," the industry group says.

The IFPI points out that increasing numbers of Web sites are now licensed to sell DRM-free tracks -- and that, in January of last year, Apple's iTunes announced it was issuing eight million DRM-free tracks.

But the report also specifies a number of actions taken by the recording industry lately in various countries to combat piracy.

Last month, "the US recording industry announced it was working with the Attorney General of New York State and leading ISPs on anti-piracy initiatives," said IFPI President and Chief Executive John Kennedy, in his introduction to the report.

"In France, a draft Creation and Internet Law sets up a system of 'graduated response' by which ISPs will write to persistent copyright abusers to educate and warn them about their actions, as a last resort sanctioning them with loss of Internet access for between one and 12 months," according to a statement released by the IFPI in conjunction with the Digital Music Report.

"Research suggests the graduated response scheme will be effective. Seven in ten (72 per cent) of UK music consumers would stop illegally downloading if told to do so by their ISP (Entertainment Media Research, 2008). Seven in ten (74 per cent) French consumers agree Internet account disconnection is a better approach than fines and criminal sanctions," the IFPI's statement continues. "In July 2008, the UK government brokered a joint 'Memorandum of Understanding' between the recording and film industries and the six largest ISPs, binding the parties to work to achieve a significant reduction in unauthorised file-sharing. At the same time, the government initiated a consultation on legislative options to deal with Internet piracy."

Comments

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Hey, everyone, the next time either Tool, or foxfart, replies to your postings with their libertopian nonsense just post this link and you can then easily dismiss them.

http://sethf.com/essays/major/libstupid.php

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Time to download my music from the library now :P

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No payment of any kind to anyone was made before I downloaded a copy of this webpage.

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95% thats alot. Will it stop or slow down. No. Artists get little and the RIAA gets most. IF THEY GET TO shut down internet connections and that number drops to 80%. What will happen then? Greed will come in again. Will they go up to you in the mall or on the street and take your mp3 player to check the songs? What will stop them if they can still get you in your own house? Is it not weird that a digital download of a CD is more expensive to purchase than the CD itself?Where does the logic come in? They should just charge $100 for a CD and $99 for digital download and then they would have all of their money back! Better yet... Make it part of your yearly taxes!!!

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And they came up with the data from what source? There could be 99 percent legal downloads and they'll still make up some number no matter what. Also, they forget to include that when someone pays for a song, the labels usually find a way to screw the artist anyway. Why do you think the bands are selling their products on their own sites now? 95 percent unauthorized is laughable and fiction. If that's the case, how does Amy Crackwh*** afford all of the coke?

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overlandpark4me, they probably got their stats from the same place as the RIAA: they just made them up! Just like the RIAA, they will repeat and repeat them and suddenly because they have been heard so often, they become accepted as correct.

They have no way to measure what they are pretending to put forward as a fact. This is just part of a huge PR campaign to launch this new tactic.

And you are right............the artists get virtually nothing from music sales. The recording companies grab most of the money. Why else would a growing number of artists start their own labels other than to get some more of what is due to them for their hard work. But it is better for sympathy to pretend that the artists are losing big time because the huge conglomerates losing some more profit would not get much sympathy.

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"If that's the case, how does Amy Crackwh*** afford all of the coke?"

Who?

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Winehouse?

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well i guess apples itunes and amazon, zune etc don't have much market share lol

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Market share considers the whole of a legitimate market. Among the total number of legal downloaders, we can thereby determine how many use each service, and thus apply our "market share" statistics to them.

None of those numbers include illegal downloading in any way shape or form.

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I'm doing my part.

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Breaking news: IFPI are 95% too late to fix it now.

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this is bad cause it will cost isps money, and who do you think will pay the bill US, so we will be paying for the music in the end anyhow so if this goes through i'll download every mp3 i can find and let them try and cut me off.. someone will start a class action suit and i will be one of them.

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Ah, come on! They would pay if they could!
In fact they want to pay!

Its only that DRM is so busy making criminals that all of the legitimate copiers, that they simply can't remember where or to whom submit their compensation for the owners of said material.

After all, you get rid of DRM, and the anti-DRM folks maintain that illegal coppying with instantly cease!

Now, if we could just eliminate cops and jails and courts, and crime will cease altogether!

;-)

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Man, are you ever retarded. The more you talk the more you prove this fact. You libertopians sure are stupid creatures. You also seem to love to w.h.o.r.e. yourself out to the corporate as well.

No one ever made such a claim. Well, no one but you and your ilk. Being a libertopian I would think (You should try it sometime.) that even you would know the difference between real property and intellectual property and why your statement about cops and jails is extremely idiotic.

No wonder just about everything you libertopians touch eventually turns to c.r.a.p. You just don't have one clue about how the real world actually works.

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The tweeny speaks!

As he manages to stop watching TV long enough to switch his TV over to the Internet!

Tweenboy, do you have anything other than your lack of understanding of one buzz word that no one cares about? You throw it around with such ignorance that you are a parody of yourself. Especially as you think that Bush and the Republicans are Libertarians. LOL!

But folks, enjoy the tweeny who thinks all is solved by socialism. We have just about all seen the natural progression of teeneagers as they suddenly become aware of the big bad world as they run for someone to guarantee everything for them as they demand others give them what they have no clue nor resources to provide for themselves. But its fun to listen to him talk of injustice as he entitles himself to other's property and services. Especially his mom's...as it is her responsibility to provide for the egotistical ingrate.

So settle down, grab your Britny banky and lay back down and suck your thumb as you dream of riding your skateboard as you carry your nifty Britny lunchbox to school.

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Hey, Teenboy.

Name just ONE place in the US where the Libertarians have ever had the majority and contrrolled whatever it is that you claim they "turned to crap".

Just one.

Come on, Tweenboy.... We're waiting.

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I wouldn't hold your breath....never gonna happen.

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I expect they included actual free DL's--songs
what the artist et al are giving away--as part of
that 95%, as well as legal paid DL's where they
don't get a cut.
Which would include all Guns n Roses DL's, IIRC

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Hum, increased unauthorized download, and somehow there was also an increase in sales. What if a decreases in unauthorized download correlates to a decrease in sale?

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I call shenanigans, because didn't the MPAA or RIAA fudge the numbers on one of these studies in the past?

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Agreed. 95% is a rather large number. I feel like this is more of an assumption based off of a small polled area... not all pirates are caught, nor are all legal sales possibly represented here. I feel they are trying to account for some margin of unknown error and rather stating 95% to get ISPs to agree to filter queries to prosecute.

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I always like to take those pumped up numbers and multiple it by those pumped up justice punishments and just see how astronomically high those numbers are. Ready?

$3.7 billlion/5* 95 = $70.1 billion of lost income due to piracy.
$70.1 billion / 0.99 (price of a song) = $71.0 billion songs pirated.
71.0 billion * $250K per song = $17,750,000,000,000,000.00 or 17.75 quadrillion dollars.

In other words the proper punishment to solve every person who illegally downloads music is equal to more money that is probably in existence in the world economy. Bankrupting it is probably not a good idea. When that happens, no one pays taxes, no government officials benefits from taxes, no government exists, and crazy extremist with access to nuclear missiles can...well we can kiss life on earth as we know it goodbye.

Kinda makes the piracy problem a little less significant when you look at it this way.

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So because I illegally downloaded that CD over the weekend, Britney Spears will have to suffer with purchasing a Gulfstream II instead of the Gulfstream III she really wanted? Lil' Bow Wow, had to save his money for four months, and wait until he turned 16 to buy that Land Rover HSE Sport he wanted a couple months ago? How will I ever sleep again?

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