Consumer Focus UK has revealed new research that shows how four in ten people are unable to name a single online music service at all - despite there being over 20 on the market. Furthermore the nine in ten (85%) who are aware of online music services, have only heard of iTunes and Amazon.The study shows how the music industry is failing to promote its many legal alternatives to copyright infringement, preferring instead to take the enforcement rout first. This is at least part of the reason why so many still abuse file sharing (P2P) services to download commercial music tracks without paying for the content.
Jill Johnstone, International Director, Consumer Focus, said:
"The music industry is shooting itself in the foot by not promoting legal online music services. If file sharing is causing the damage the music industry claims, why aren’t they putting more effort in to promoting the legal alternatives?
Before we go down the enforcement road it is only fair to ask the music industry to do more to make people aware of the legal options."
"The music industry is shooting itself in the foot by not promoting legal online music services. If file sharing is causing the damage the music industry claims, why aren’t they putting more effort in to promoting the legal alternatives?
Before we go down the enforcement road it is only fair to ask the music industry to do more to make people aware of the legal options."
To be fair part of this role rests with the owners of related online music sites, which carry the greatest responsibility to promote their own services. We rarely see TV advertisements etc. for them and perhaps this is an area that should be pursued with more aggression.
To further encourage the growth of legal online music services Consumer Focus is also calling for reform of UK’s copyright licensing system to make it easier for online music services to offer copyrighted works to consumers legally. Reform would encourage the growth of more legal alternatives such as streaming, “all you can eat”, micropayment, advertisement or subscription based models.
UPDATE - 8:41am
Forgot to mention that we listed a large number of legal alternatives and a sample of their prices during December 2009 - HERE.
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Comments: 2
musicmanPosted: 8 March, 2010 - 10:18 AM
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I completely agree with this article, all the companies want to do is prosecute people. I have been saying for ages that the problem is a lot of the legal sites offer current and some older top 40 style music. I look for new country music a lot and find it very hard to find anywhere to download it. Give us a legal alternative and it would be a great start!
HehePosted: 8 March, 2010 - 10:38 AM
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The problem we have here is that the big four record labels are used to dealing with a third party like HMV, Tower Records, Virgin Mageastore (and Best Buy etc in the US).
Those stores were well established already and easy for people to remember when out shopping for music.
Nowadays with digital downloads and the way licensing is whereby one online store may not even have what another online store is selling, means there is confusion amongst consumers. Let alone the various formats and DRM schemes being employed. The music industry is to blame itself.
If all the companies had all gotten together and said 'OK guys let's sort this mess out and create a single place where people can buy our music cheaply (They are still charging prices as if a download = a CD), in an easy to use format (MP3 or flac), can converse with other fans and make special offers to them etc', then we would not be
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