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Choosey Kids Choose Illegal File Sharing
John Stith
Staff Writer
2005-11-29
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The scourge of record companies remains file sharing. It comes as no surprise free songs are better than the ones people pay for, particularly to teenagers. A recent study by Jupiter Research confirmed that fact and that it's unlikely to change anytime in the near future. This doesn't bode well for the future of record companies.
The study, done in Europe, showed consumers are three times more likely to go for the illegal downloads instead of the paid ones with about 15% going for the peer-to-peer downloads and 5% digging the legal stuff.
Also not surprising are teenagers doing the p2p downloads more. 34% of the 15-24 age group admitted to sharing music online without paying for it. Not good for record companies.
Mark Mulligan, an analyst from Jupiter said, "The digital youth of today are being brought up on a near limitless diet of free and disposable music from file-sharing networks.
"When these consumers age and increase in spending power they should be come key music buying consumers. Unless the music industry can transition these consumers whilst they are young away from free consumption to paid music formats, be they digital or CDs, they may never develop music purchasing behavior and the recording industry could suffer long term harm."
In the end, it's becoming apparent the music companies need to develop another business model. While the file sharing may be illegal, people will continue to do it. There's little chance of getting caught and the payoff is immediate. While it may be a crime, authorities can't stop major virus attacks or denials-of service. How can they stop millions of young adults from downloading?
Also it's tough to have sympathy for the music industry when giants like Sony BMG spread rootkits with their CDs. When word got out about this, many people wanted to see the big company suffer painfully.
A recent Pew Foundation study noted the same patterns of behavior in the U.S. Young people downloaded a lot of content and most felt that even though it's illegal they felt it was unreasonable to expect people not to do it since it's so easy and that they would continue to do it.
It's a simple fact. It's easier to download a song from a p2p network than any of the options presented. If you want the disc, you either get dressed and head to your favorite retailer or you fish out your wallet for your credit card online. With the p2p, you just type in what you want, wait until it appears, click on it and that's it. You may get a virus occasionally, but with Sony, buying the disc doesn't prevent that either, considering they opened the door for it.
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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