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IFPI Reports Boom in Digital Music Sales but Blames Piracy for Decline

Posted: 22nd Jan, 2010 By: MarkJ
illegal file sharingThe International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has issued its latest Digital Music Report 2010, which reveals that global digital music trade revenues reached £2.6 billion (up 12%) in 2009. However, despite the music industry increasing its digital revenues by 940% since 2004, "illegal" P2P file sharing by customers of broadband ISPs apparently attributed to an overall global market (physical and digital media) decline of around 30% in the same period.

Complete full year figures were not offered, but digital and physical global sales in the first half of 2009 were reportedly down 12%, excluding performance rights income. However it's worth pointing out that the report appears to lump its digital and physical sales data together; online piracy is purely digital, where trade is still heading upwards.

Needless to say that it’s difficult to read, on the one hand blaming P2P piracy for a decline in music sales and on the other saying things like this - "Sales of music downloads, the dominant revenue stream in digital music, are seeing steady growth. Single track download sales increased by an estimated 10%, while digital albums rose an estimated 20% in 2009."

The report claims third party studies overwhelmingly conclude that the net impact of illegal file-sharing is to depress sales of music. In addition, According to Jupiter Research, around one in five internet users in Europe (21%) shares unauthorised music. Research by Harris Interactive in the UK shows that although P2P remains the major piracy problem, unlicensed download sites, newsgroups, specialised search engines, forums, blogs and cyberlockers were all significant channels for infringement.

IFPI Chairman and CEO, John Kennedy, said:

"Music fans today can acquire tracks and albums in ways not conceivable a few years ago - from download stores, streaming sites, subscription services, free-to-user sites, bundled with their broadband or a mobile phone handset.

It would be great to report that these innovations have been rewarded by market growth, more investment in artists, more jobs. Sadly that is not the case. Digital piracy remains a huge barrier to market growth and is causing a steady erosion of investment in local music.

Governments, led by France, South Korea, Taiwan, the UK and New Zealand led the way in 2009 by adopting or proposing legislation to tackle piracy. It is vital these efforts are seen through to their conclusion and followed by other governments in 2010."

The IFPI concluded by once again calling for urgent adoption of laws to curb P2P and other forms of online piracy - including the "graduated response" (a politically correct way of saying the "three-strikes" system) by which ISPs would cooperate with right holders in deterring illegal file-sharing on their networks.
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