Illegal Downloading

Illegal Downloading
The record industry is suffering a continuous crisis situation as the figures of illegal music downloads grows. Illegal downloading has become easier and more widespread as people seem no longer to fear official prosecution against them. There has been a decrease in CD prices, therefore legal downloading with its previously attractive lower cost is no longer appealing. This has contributed to 43% of people in a poll attesting that they regularly download music illegally and 18% said that they would continue to do so. The same poll was taken a year later ad only 36% of participants claimed that they illegally downloaded, and a small 8% indicated that they intended to continue this.

The organisation which carried out the Digital Music Survey, Entertainment Media Research, has been undertaking these inquiries for the last three years, and this year charts the most significant increase so far. Their fourth Digital Music Survey has sparked debate amongst industry insiders as to what can be done to halt this rapid increase in illegal activity, something which is shared by legal music representatives in law firms.

An obvious way to stop illegal downloading is to make it easier and cheaper for people to download music legally, from sites such as iTunes and Sony in an attempt to stop the rise in piracry on the internet.