Broadband News
More must be done to promote legal music downloads
Tuesday, 09 March 2010
By Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk
The music industry is failing to promote the many legal music download services, preferring to go down the enforcement route first, research by Consumer Focus has found.
Four in ten people were unable to name a single online music service - despite there being over 20 services on the market, said the consumer watchdog. And only 85%had heard of two established brands - iTunes and Amazon.
The research has highlighted the fact that most consumers do not know where to buy music online, an issue that Consumer Focus says is “contributing to the current high levels of online copyright infringement”.
Jill Johnstone, international director at Consumer Focus, said: “The music industry is shooting itself in the foot by not promoting legal online music services. If file sharing is causing the damage the music industry claims, why aren’t they putting more effort in to promoting the legal alternatives?
“Before we go down the enforcement road it is only fair to ask the music industry to do more to make people aware of the legal options.”
Consumer Focus added that while it did not condone online copyright infringement, it saw it as “the inevitable consequence of the music industry’s failure to provide and promote legal music services”.
However, Geoff Taylor, BPI chief executive, countered: “It’s just not credible to suggest that people who are downloading illegally haven’t heard of iTunes, Amazon or other legal music services. Our much larger, more recent and targeted online survey shows that awareness of legal music services among internet users is almost universal. The measures in the Digital Economy Bill are precisely what is needed to encourage illegal downloaders to move across to those legal services”.
As well as the pay per track options offered by music giants iTunes and Amazon - and even Tesco, Play.com and HMV - there are also a number of subscription based services available from Sky Broadband's (www.Sky.com) Sky Songs, Napster and eMusic, while Spotify and Last FM offer unlimited legal music streaming.
Michael Phillips, Broadbandchoices.co.uk product director, said: “Amazon offers single track downloads from just 29p and you can get a whole MP3 album from Tesco or Play.com for as little as £3. There are loads of legal services out there; the music industry just needs to do more to make the public aware of the options.”
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