By: MarkJ - 4 August, 2010 (1:23 PM) - Score: 10900 - Piracy

The UK Performing Rights Society for Music (PRS), which represents 65,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers, has revealed that the UK music industry was worth a total of £3.9bn last year; up 4.7% on 2008. Not bad considering the economic climate and especially after all the recent claims that "suspected" illegal P2P file sharing by broadband ISP customers was "killing" music.

However, retail recorded music sales remained flat at £1.36bn, which is apparently a reversal of the previous five year decline. It should be noted that this factors in several areas, with an earlier PRS's report showing that online revenues from legal licensed digital music services had grown by 72.7% to £30.4m (here).

The rest of the money came from live revenues (£1.54 billion, up 9.4% year-on-year) and B2B revenues (up 4.4% to £967 million). Sadly revenue from live performances is believed to have peaked, which could suggest a flatter result next year.

It should be noted that the governments controversial Digital Economy Act 2010 (DEA) is still making its way through a series of Ofcom consultations and will not really begin to show any impact until next summer. It remains to be seen what kind of market adjustment will result from sending out countless copyright infringement warning letters to ISP customers.