Survey Says: Pirates Spend More

For many years now, impressive looking figures have been bandied around showing how much piracy "costs" the music industry.

Often these figures presume that every single person who downloads an album would have bought said album for full price at HMV (at around £17 a pop?). The pirates, on the other hand, say downloading is a try-before-you-buy exercise which exposes them to even more music and leads to the purchase of ample amounts of music.

A new survey by research group Demos - which questioned 1,008 UK music consumers - backs up the claims of the pirates, revealing that the average person who engages in unauthorised downloading spends an average of £77 a year on legally purchased music whereas their law-abiding counterparts spend an average of just £44 a year.

Some of the findings of the survey were:

- 10% of 16-50 year-olds download music illegally from websites such as The Pirate Bay
~ 80% of that 10% group bought CDs, vinyl and MP3s

- 50% of people listen to licensed music via YouTube
- 22% listen to internet radio
- 9% use Spotify

- 75% of 16-24 year olds said they were prepared to pay for MP3s
- The preferred price of these MP3s would be 45p

MP3s currently sell for between 79p and £1.30 in the U.K.

"Politicians and music companies need to recognise that the nature of music consumption has changed and consumers are demanding lower prices and easier access to music," said Demos researcher Peter Bradwell.

Blatantly ignoring the results of the survey, a spokesman for the government's department of Business concluded, "While surveys asking people about unlawful behaviour should be treated with caution, it's encouraging that the findings signal that the three-pronged approach set out by the Government this week - a mix of education, enforcement and attractive new commercial deals - provides the best way forward for industry and consumers."

The U.K government is currently seeking to push through new laws which would see unauthorised downloaders disconnected from their internet services.