Another (UK) Study Shows Downloaders Buy More Music

Via Jeffrey Remedios: Yet another survey, this time from the U.K., shows that the people who are most likely to download music are also the people who spend the most money on it. To the best of my knowledge every independent (not funded by the music industry) study on the subject, in any country, has shown the same thing. The particulars of this one though show that:

"People who illegally download music from the internet also spend more money on music than anyone else, according to a new study. The survey, published today, found that those who admit illegally downloading music spent an average of £77 a year on music – £33 more than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly.

The findings suggest that plans by the Secretary of State for Business, Peter Mandelson, to crack down on illegal downloaders by threatening to cut their internet connections with a "three strikes and you're out" rule could harm the music industry by punishing its core customers."

The lessons here are fairly simple:

1) There is absolutely nothing that can be done about downloading - every attempt to curb it ends up costing far more than is ever recouped and no attempt to curb it seems to have had any impact to date. Even if you were somehow able to shut down torrents there is now free software that will let users record any radio stream and make individual mp3s of the software. Radio is now a file sharing service.

2) Overt attempts to curb downloading wind up alienating your core audience / best potential customers - making them less likely to buy anything.

All of the lawsuits to date have amounted to sheer spite. Yes there are tens of thousands of songs per minute being downloaded illegally - if you catch one of the downloaders, sue them for millions and ruin their life it has no impact on the overall problem. You can't possibly sue enough people to have an impact, it obviously doesn't scare people off of downloading - if anything they download even more out of spite, and you are unlikely to recoup the money you are awarded or even enough to pay the court costs. So it is perceived, in the public, as 'the music industry' ruining someone's life out of spite.

As a recording artist, or rights holder, your only real hope is to have a fan base that feels a personal connection to you and that respects you enough that they want you to earn a living - then they will buy your album, go to your show, buy t-shirts etc., but again - the main point of this whole post is: the people who are downloading the most music are the people who will make up the core of any paying audience you may have.