Internet Piracy: The Facts

November 15, 2005

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The scope of the problem and the effects on the music industry

There are 900 million unauthorised music files at any one time on the internet.
Illegal file-sharing is a major factor in the fall in CD sales, down 22% over five years.
The value of audio sales is down in the last five years: in Sweden 34%, Switzerland 23%, Hong Kong 25%, Germany 50%, Denmark 43%, Netherlands 35%, Italy 24%, Austria 30%, Finland 18% (all local currency).
15% of industry sales on average go into developing new artists - higher R&D costs than most industry sectors and on a par with pharmaceuticals.

The industry response and its impact on illegal file-sharing

With today's announcement of over 2,100 new actions, the campaign now extends to 16 countries outside the US, with the total number of cases launched against file-sharing reaching over 3,800.Â Â
Infringing music files on the Internet overall (peer-to-peer and other) are down 10% between June 2003 and July 2005 (1.1 billion to 900 million). This compares to a 13% increase in broadband penetration over the same period.
The number of users of file-sharing service Kazaa has fallen to an average of 2.4 million in 2005, compared to a peak of 4.2 million in April 2003.

Awareness and attitudes towards file-sharing

On average 7 out of 10 people in Europe and in the US are aware that unauthorised file- sharing is illegal.
Over 52 million instant messages have been sent.
37% of currently active file-sharers in the UK have already started to cut file-sharing down because of the fear of legal actions (Jupiter UK Music Consumer Survey, April 2005).
One in three the music consumers in the US state that the number one reason for stopping illegal file-sharing was concern about facing legal action. 40% said they had become too annoyed by the amount of spyware, adware and viruses found on P2P networks1.
In the US, 59% of people say that they would be deterred by the lawsuits (Taylor Research, Sept 2005)