Music Piracy More Popular Than Downloads

Author JoeDigital

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has shown that up to ninety-five percent of music downloaded online is illegal. For artists and music companies, this means big bucks that are being lost in fair sales, and the report starts off making the situation look dire indeed.

And while the illegal trading of music is a problem, the report goes on to show that music sales online have increased by around 25%, despite an overall market decease in 2008 of 7%. This increase in sales is recognized by many as the recouping of monies that would otherwise have been lost, if music companies had not undertaken a aggressive approach to online marketing, using social media sites such as FaceBook and Myspace to promote legal music downloads in ways that had never been imagined.

Analysts estimate that the digital music business has an overall worth of around $3.7 billion, which is not small matter. As company pundits and politicians debate how to regulate the illegal music trade, it like so many other Internet reform concerns, seems detined to solve itself, as responsible people gravitate towards legitimate methods of acquiring their music online. The focus has always been on getting the music, after all, it wasn’t a distaste for buying it. Music companies, now that they are providing methods of online sales, are regaining the customers they criticzed for abandoning them.

Oddly, the other side of that coin see the online community welcoming the music companies, and wondering why it has taken them so long to catch up with the 21st century.

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