Popularity of illegal music downloads still high

The results of a recent study have shown that despite mounting concern and actions from the entertainment industry and ISPs, illegal music downloads are still very popular amongst younger broadband users in the UK.

Over recent years the entertainment industry has been expressing mounting concern over illegal music download, which it has claimed is costing the industry a fortune in lost revenue. The industry has been putting mounting pressure on Internet Service Providers to try and put a stop to illegal music downloads, and some ISPs have tried to take action against those found to be illegally downloading music.

However, despite these concerns and measures the results of a recent study have shown that illegal music downloading still remains highly popular amongst younger broadband users. The survey was carried out by UK Music and is called the Annual Academic Survey. The results flew in the face of an earlier separate survey, which indicated that the popularity of illegal music downloads was waning because of the availability of sites such as YouTube.

This latest survey involved studying the habits of around eighteen hundred younger broadband customers aged between fourteen and twenty four years. In found that in terms of popularity there had been very little change since last year when it came to younger people illegally downloading music using their broadband in UK.

An official from UK Music said: “This is the second year we have run this survey with the University Of Hertfordshire’s Music and Entertainment Industry Management Research Group. As with last year’s results, this snapshot of how importantly young people rate music, how they are accessing it, consuming it, sharing it and copying it, makes for fascinating reading”.

Source – Broadband Internet UK