New Market Research: Music Streaming Services Halve Illegal Downloads
from the giving-customers-what-they-want dept
For a long time, the copyright industries have taken the position that they won't launch new digital music services until piracy is "solved" – or at least punished. The inevitable consequence of that position is obvious to everyone outside the copyright industries – people turn to other, unauthorized sources to satisfy their musical needs. Fortunately, a few startups have launched pioneering digital music offerings and some, like Spotify, look like they might succeed.
This means that we are beginning to get some real-life figures to flesh out the counter-argument that offering people new ways to listen to music online would greatly help to reduce piracy. For example, at the end of last year, Techdirt wrote about a Swedish study that supported this idea. Now we have some new market research on music streaming services in Scandinavia:
While we may think of Sweden as the home of music streaming, the proportion of Norwegians who have access to a music streaming service has increased from 37 to 56 percent in the last six months. For the first time, Norway has surpassed Sweden in this statistic - in Sweden during the same period the corresponding figure increased from 48 to 54 percent.
Those are impressive figures, and give an indication of the untapped potential in other markets that still don't have serious music streaming services able to offer most tracks that people want to listen to – crucial if they are to displace illegal downloads.
Even more remarkable is the following statistic about the three countries where the research was conducted – Norway, Sweden and Denmark:
Across all three Scandinavian countries, the survey also shows that over half the people who previously downloaded music illegally no longer do so after they have been given access to a streaming service.
So forget SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, TPP, HADOPI, the Digital Economy Act, La Ley Sinde and all the other punitive frameworks for tackling unauthorized downloads: this latest research adds weight to the argument that by far the quickest way to reduce the scale of music piracy is to introduce decent streaming services.
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Filed Under: copyright, infringement, innovation, service, streaming
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Damn phone...
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But yours works too.
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One of the problems with congress is that they have taken RIAA / MPAA funded studies as a matter of fact and haven't looked or had access to other data. It'd be funnier if it wasn't real - just like the hearings where some were asking if anyone had asked "the nerds" about SOPA.
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Lack of quality streaming services available in the US make it difficult to get those kind of statistics here.
Look, I had a Pandora subscription for awhile. And while it found me some good music on occasion, getting a station set up to meet my varying tastes was time consuming (a lot of having to pay attention and thumbing up or down tracks). There were some artists and tracks that it never had, and others that even when specifically searched for and added as a seed to a station it still would never pay.
I'm using Grooveshark now. Again, its got some good features, but I still need to spend a lot of time to search for and select specific tracks to add them to playlists.
If Spotify ever drops the mandatory Facebook integration, I might try it to see if its any better, but until they stop requiring Facebook info to even set up a paid subscription, I'll never know if its an improvement.
So give me and all the other potential customers out there better services and then after some time we'll see if there's a corresponding drop in piracy.
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As always it's just obvious that the solution [for piracy] is a /better/ business model. Amusingly (and predictably) all the new and amazing business models that compete just fine with 'piracy' came all from outside the MAFIAA. And they tried to kill all of them, legit or not.
I won't hold my breath waiting for the music industry to realize that.
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They just don't make trolls like they used to.
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Weird Harold never left - he simply changed names a few times.
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People just use those services as their source for the copies now.
On another note the UK got a new service, it costs 1 penny a month and gives you access to all you can hear music and apparently all the music labels are in it, supposedly they want to target the 70% of people who don't actually use digital at all but owns a cellphone, the service is called rara.com, now that is a problem for freedom because now someone is being smart about the price point and could if done right capture almost all of that market there and elsewhere becoming huge.
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Considering that it's their entire strategy, I'm sure they've perfected it quite well.
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Response to: fogbugzd on Jan 24th, 2012 @ 9:48am
If the bizz kills of Spotify I am going back to illigal downloads again. I am fed up with jumping through hoops to listen to music.
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I think the internet might be different elsewhere.
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As far as steaming music, if there are good channels to listen to...yeah I dont bother downloading music.
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I am curious as to who is providing service to this guy. If he is really from the 5th largest city, which the internet says is Philly, then he has at least 5 options, again according to the internet. I am guessing he is actually from Poedunk, Nowhere. In which case I believe his internet is shit, because when I lived in rural Wisco my 1 internet option was shit, but it still wasn't 60$.
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I currently only have -one- option for internet (overprice wireless or satellite are not reasonable options.), but everyone claims to serve my area.
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As far as steaming music, if there are good channels to listen to...yeah I dont bother downloading music."
Phoenix Az. Cox cable - an older suburb, no DSL. I may not have mentioned but I was refferring more to video. It's easier to download a podcast from MSNBC (even though it might take hours to do) than to watch it sputter and stop every 2 seconds to stream.
This goes for You Tube as well. I can watch You Tube better on a 3g network, with a "non-smart" phone than I can on 2010 macbook pro. I've had many conversations and visits from Cox over this, with no improvement. But it's all I got.
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Less total bandwidth perhaps, but maybe what he's referring to is buffering, etc. He could have a fairly good overall speed, but have a quality of service that's not reliable enough to stop the stream from getting interrupted for a second or two every so often (which is extremely annoying).
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"Piracy".
When people who are opposed to the copyright monopolies and how they are abused use this word, it gives strength and authority to the word. Piracy, by definition, is the assault on merchant ships in order to steal cargo by force so that it can be carried away and sold on the black market for profit. Its use implies meaning where it doesn't actually apply, creating ignorance and moral outrage in those that don't fully understand the nuances of technology and communication.
There are better and more apt words that can be used for this: infringement, unauthorized copying, illegal downloading, and copyright violation. Using the term "piracy" just gives their application of the word more power, don't give them any more power.
Sorry to derail the discussion like this, I just felt it needed to be said.
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Re: "Piracy".
"These damn ninjas! They're destroying our business models with their throwing stars!"
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Re: Re: "Piracy".
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If pirates practice piracy then ninjas practice ninjutsu
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Re: "Piracy".
Interestingly, historical pirates were actually corporate tools, funded and given authority by governments and business. It throws another interestingly layer of inaccuracy to the term as we use it now.
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Re: "Piracy".
I'm much more concerned about the indictment against Mega being termed "the conspiracy". I'm sure that was intentional and not just for weighing in on emotions associated with the term, but for legal reasons that may not have been outlined yet.
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Re: "Piracy".
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Of course that isn't universal. I did a brief survey of major world language families a bit ago, and found that only 2 out of 5 families have a concept of stealing the intangible (though one did have a recently coined slang term to that effect). E.g. in one language you "misuse" someone else's password.
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Sure, I hear it everytime I listen to the Chris Dodd's and Carly Sherman's speak.
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I, too, am beginning to think that even if the record labels woke up tomorrow and started listening to their customers, they might be too late.
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Or in the words of Michael Corleone:
Fredo...you're nothing to me now; not a brother; not a friend.
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Nowhere have I seen the issue that people have been boycotting some labels for about a decade now, or the rise of independent music (RIAA still claims they represent 90% of legit music sold - i.e. independent is not "legit") and the public has moved on.
This is part of the public's apathy towards copyright bills. They moved on. This is old news to them.
The reality is that Congress and industry and the public have never agreed on a single moral issue, but they can debate it forever and ever and ever ... It's time to get real and design something that doesn't make 50% of people criminals and allows compensation and freedom for creators too (meaning they can skip signing with copyright holders if they choose without undue economic harm - allowing new distribution models without calling it piracy).
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Supreme excellence in the art of marketing is making them GLAD to give you the money.
The RIAA seems to think that marketing involves pointing law enforcement's guns at people (The root word for "enforcement" is?) and MAKING them give money.
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It's the art of getting you to act against your own best interests.
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Pirate talk, nothing but pirates.
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Just one word
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One problem with this information
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Re: One problem with this information
The labels are seeing their domain shrink, which is what has them all in a tizzy. They're losing their exclusive control over the means of distribution & production, not to mention their role as king-makers, of selecting who will be the "important" artists. This loss in inevitable, and the labels understand that this means their influence & empire will be shrinking.
They're delaying that as much as they can. There is still a profitable business they can perform, but it won't be the obscene profits they're used to.
I can totally understand their problem. I'm also glad to see the changes that are causing it. The labels have been a caustic & detrimental influence on arts & culture for a very long time, and reducing it is only good for everybody (except them).
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Netflix has shown what will happen when music streaming services take off - the content providers will freak & jack up streaming rates exponentially. We've already seen that happen with Pandora and other internet radio.
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Compare with, for example, Steam and Origin: both feel "right", and both act as backup services in case of dramatic failures (re-installs, HDD crashes etc.)
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Netflix in UK
HOWEVER Netflix in UK is so crippled by the studios not authorising newer films and TV shows that all it has is old rubbish. Even the UK tv channels don't put content on. This is the level of service the BIG MEDIA allows us to have, and it is not good enough.
If Netflix is to be a success, the media companies need to allow them to show recent films and tv shows.
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Well..
I download from TPB-like site - FREE of charge.
I listen from Grooveshark-like service, YouTube - FREE of charge.
So.. if people couldn't download music, they would switch to Grooveshark or similar free service or YouTube.
And then again - there's tons of Creative Commons licenced music out there - that would also be an option.
So this fight against music file-sharing is pointless - people will find another alternatives, as I've stated.
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For one, what is a streaming service? Only fully legal services like Spotify, Rdio, or Rhapsody? Or are services with questionable legality included, such as Grooveshark? Or maybe it can be taken even further, such as youtube or even a radio service.
Similarly, the data only talks about those listening to a music service and those willing to pay. It never combines the two to tell us how many people are paying for subscription services. The actual amount of paying subscribers is probably well below 20%.
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Musik
We are also happy to say that the monopoly of the RIAA has been killed when they barely make up half the market sales with the Indie artists making up the rest.
All would be happy in the World if not for the RIAA with their SOPA law and their many attacks on Indie music supply like DaJaz1, OnSmash, MegaBox and MegaClick?. All done to try and keep Indie artists under the RIAA cartel umbrella so they can take their 80% cut.
Obviously we should not allow a monopoly to crush a free and vibrant market.
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about pirecy
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