According to a survey from British Music Rights, 80% of kids are willing to pay for a legal P2P system. The group surveyed U.K. youths aged 14-22 about their music habits–from uploading their own original songs, illegal downloads, and how they feel about digital music.
Young people today are already using P2P to get their music, so it makes sense that they are comfortable with using a legal P2P system. About 63% of respondents said that they download music using P2P file-sharing networks.
Unfortunately, there is no legal, pay P2P system available now. So kids are doing what they know: downloading lots of music illegally with P2P. The survey found that respondents had an average of 1770 tracks, of which half were downloaded illegally. They also share music by trading CDs, or copying music from their friends’ hard drives. Seems pretty hard for the RIAA to stop this kind of piracy, isn’t it?
Music labels should take a long look at this study. It shows how kids’ habits about digital music are much different than adults, simply because they’ve grown up with things like P2P, social media and the decline of CD sales. If they don’t heed what kids are already doing today, how can they hope to stay relevant in the future? Labels need to start realizing that their old business models are changing rapidly and they need to adapt with different business models.
Interestingly, the study found that 60% of young people would still purchase CDs. even with a legal file-sharing service. Primarily, that’s because they want to own something physical.
Some highlights:
- 90% of respondents own an MP3 player
- 58% have copied music from a friend’s hard drive to their own
- 95% said that they copy music in some way
- 42% have allowed P2P users to upload music from their computer.
- Money spent on live music exceeds that spent on recorded music
Bonus: Press release from BMR here.
Bonus #2: Article from Ars Technica.
