Decline in file sharing in the UK especially with the young

The Peer to Peer (P2P) downloading of music is increasingly being replaced by purchasing and streaming of music in the UK with teenagers predominantly following this path.

An annual report from The Leading Question, a media and technology research company, has found that since the last survey that was performed nationally back in 2007 the huge range of methods of obtaining music legally online in the UK has led to a significant reduction in the use of P2P file sharing. The number of teenagers now file-sharing has dropped by a third, which accounts for a large portion of the decline.

Interviews were carried out face-to-face with a thousand fans of music between 14 and 64 years of age by The Leading Question, although anyone without mobile phones or no broadband access were excluded from the survey.

December 2007 saw 22 percent of those questioned admitting to sharing files on a regular basis, which meant monthly, and this compares to the figures taken in January 2009 showing only 17 percent of users file sharing.

There was on even more surprising change in the number of 14 to 18 year olds who admitted file sharing, with 26 percent doing it in January 2009 comparing to 42 percent saying they downloaded music from P2P sites.

The results of the survey by The Leading edge found that teenagers were now increasingly obtain music from legal sources with 65 percent of teenagers now using MySpace, Spotify and YouTube to streaming the music they wanted. Streaming music was listened to on a daily basis by 31 percent of the teenagers questioned, although the number of music lover in the UK downloading single tracks accounted for just 19 percent.

User who said that they had, at some point, downloaded P2P music had, however, increased from 28 percent in December 2007 to 31 percent in January, which means user are still choosing to share their music files. Many users were also using the old-fashioned method of sharing music according to the report.

Source – http://arstechnica.com