Music industry cheered by sinking of pirates

The record industry's hardline stance on illegal downloads appears to be paying off, with the number of people paying for them expected to overtake the pirates within a year.

An increasing number of people are opting to buy downloads rather than risk prosecution, according to the 2005 Digital Music Survey to be released today. Some 35% of music consumers now legally download, compared to 40% of those who do so illegally. Nearly a quarter of people said they would start legally downloading soon, compared with 16% in 2004.

"I think there is a good chance that we will see legal downloaders outnumber pirates in the next six to 12 months," said Russell Hart, chief executive of Entertainment Media Research, which conducted the survey.

Fear of prosecution was the number one reason music consumers were put off downloading illegally. About 44% of survey respondents cited fear of prosecution, 39% said illegal downloading was unfair on the artists, and 29% were concerned about viruses.

Children aged 13-17 and women were most likely to be concerned about being taken to court for music piracy. EMR believes illegal downloading is on the wane, as 65% of people who have pirated music claim they will do so less often in the future.

The main reasons people didn't download music was because they preferred CDs (58%) or because they thought it was too expensive (35%).

Downloading is still more popular among males (39%) than females (31%) while 44% of men aged 18-24 download. But the next generation of downloaders is expected to include more women (24.5% intended to download in the future) than men (21.5%).

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