MP3 Players Carry Illegal Tunes

A new study has found that young MP3 player owners have an average of 842 illegally downloaded tunes on their players, far more than anyone would have predicted.

With legal music downloads so big in the online marketplace, you might think the problem of illegal downloads had started to recede into history. But that’s not the case, according to the University of Hertfordshire, which conducted a study among 1,200 participants. 90% own MP3 players, each containing an average of 1770 tracks – but half of those tracks have been illegally downloaded.

The study was commission by British Music Rights (BMR). It all means that those young users average 885 illegally downloaded tracks each on their players. 58% admitted to having copied music from a friend’s hard drive to their own, and 95% copy music in some way.

However, there is some good news from the study, according to former Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey, now Chief Executive of BMR:

“These responses also pull no punches in highlighting how dramatically music consumption has changed, and continues to change; certainly in the case of copying, sharing and recommendation. Technology has greatly increased the value of these activities – but it is clear that the financial gains are not necessarily feeding back to the creators: artists, composers and songwriters. How the music industry repositions itself here, and builds new mutually-beneficial commercial partnerships with technology providers remains the key challenge ahead.”