BPI, RIAA TACTICS: NOT WORKING

Of course, Playlouder run their own ISP with a music-flavour, so their survey into music fans and downloading isn't totally disinterested, but nevertheless, there's some interesting nuggets built into the figures:

82% said they were either unconcerned about being sued for file-sharing or were only slightly concerned and continued to do it anyway.

This does expose one of the major problems with the RIAA/BPI approach of suing some to encourage everybody to behave - they say the legal actions are meant to have an educational effect. Which it does, of course, but the problem isn't that people don't know that filesharing is illegal - it's just they don't care. And as a way of trying to alert people to the plight of poor multinational companies down to their last two or three million profits, it's bloody awful.

This is also quite significant:

Which music download format do you prefer?
MP3: 66%
AAC (iTunes format): 11%
Windows Media Audio: 5%
Other: 2%
No preference: 16%

Maybe the lesson here is that people would happily accept slightly lower quality in return for freedom from being told what they can with the music they've paid for.

In slightly more cheerful news for the people in the comfy reclining leather chairs, the headline on the 2006 Digital Music Survey suggesting they've got the tide of history swimming in their direction:

Around 35% of music consumers now download tracks legally via the Internet and the percentage will soon pass the 40% who have pirated music, according to a new survey released Monday by Entertainment Media Research.

Of course, this doesn't seem to take account of the obvious fact that there's going to be a hell of a lot of overlap between the two groups - we reckon that there isn't a single person with a paid-for download on their hard drive who doesn't also have something or other tucked away that, technically, they shouldn't.

John Enser, senior partner at Olswang, added in a statement: "Clear deterrents to illegal downloading are emerging, with fear of prosecution running high, and close behind is the sense that unauthorized downloading is 'not fair on the artists,' suggesting that the industry's messages, led by the British Phonographic Industry, are being communicated effectively."

Yes... that's right. This is so clearly the case, we're surprised it feels so unlike what our and everyone else's gut feelings about what's actually happening online are.

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