[Infowarrior] - Study: pirates biggest music buyers

[Richard Forno]

Study: pirates biggest music buyers. Labels: yeah, right

Those who download "free" music from P2P networks are more likely to  
spend money on legit downloads than those who are squeaky clean,  
according to a new report out of Norway. The music labels, however,  
aren't quite buying that data.

By Jacqui Cheng | Last updated April 20, 2009 10:31 PM CT

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/04/study-pirates-buy-tons-more-music-than-average-folks.ars

Those who download illegal copies of music over P2P networks are the  
biggest consumers of legal music options, according to a new study by  
the BI Norwegian School of Management. Researchers examined the music  
downloading habits of more than 1,900 Internet users over the age of  
15, and found that illegal music connoisseurs are significantly more  
likely to purchase music than the average, non-P2P-loving user.

Unsurprisingly, BI found that those between 15 and 20 are more likely  
to buy music via paid download than on a physical CD, though most  
still purchased at least one CD in the last six months. However, when  
it comes to P2P, it seems that those who wave the pirate flag are the  
most click-happy on services like the iTunes Store and Amazon MP3. BI  
said that those who said they download illegal music for "free" bought  
ten times as much legal music as those who never download music  
illegally. "The most surprising is that the proportion of paid  
download is so high," the Google-translated Audun Molde from the  
Norwegian School of Management told Aftenposten.

Record label EMI doesn't quite buy into BI's stats, though. EMI's  
Bjørn Rogstad told Aftenposten that the results make it seem like free  
downloads stimulate pay downloads, but there's no way to know for  
sure. "There is one thing we are not going away, and it is the  
consumption of music increases, while revenue declines. It can not be  
explained in any way other than that the illegal downloading is over  
the legal sale of music," Rogstad said.

Rogstad's dismissal of the findings don't take into account that the  
online music model has dramatically changed how consumers buy music.  
Instead of selling a huge volume of full albums—the physical media  
model—the record labels are now selling a huge volume of individual,  
cherry-picked tracks. It's no secret that the old album format is in  
dire straits thanks to online music, which is a large part of why  
overall music revenue is going down.

BI's report corroborates data that the Canadian branch of the RIAA,  
the Canadian Record Industry Association, released in 2006. At that  
time, the organization acknowledged that P2P users do indeed buy more  
music than the industry wants to admit, and that P2P isn't the primary  
reason why other people aren't buying music. 73 percent of of  
respondents to the CRIA's survey said that they bought music after  
they downloaded it illegally, while the primary reason from the non- 
P2P camp for not buying music was attributed to plain old apathy.