How and where do people listen to music?
(Source: ICM for Omnifone, Feb 2010 (UK)

• Living Room (hifi, TV, games console, DVD player) 79%
• Car 76%
• PC 46%
• iPod 39%
• Mobile 20%

When did the ‘music download chart’ start?

The UK Official Download Chart was launched on September 1, 2004 and included any Permanent Digital Download track, under 10 minutes long, being sold for a minimum price of 40p (0.4 GBP).

In January 2005, downloaded tracks outsold physical singles for the first time in UK music history, prompting The Official UK Charts Company to begin to incorporate downloads for the first time into the UK Singles Chart on 17 April 2005.

How much music is downloaded daily, weekly, monthly?

According to a study conducted on behalf of BPI by Harris Interactive and UKOM/Nielsen, claims that three-quarters of all music downloaded in the UK is pirated. (2010 research).

This is despite 67 legal music services available to UK citizens, which BPI says have helped expand the music market during the course of the year.

Economics of Piracy

o Laws don’t stop crimes in themselves. To make a law work requires an economic commitment in detection and punishment to reduce crime to an acceptable level.
o If law doesn’t stop murder, it won’t stop copyright theft.
o So combating piracy is about getting the pricing of the product – and the physical/legal protection of that product – down to a level that makes piracy tolerable. If you have a product that nobody wants to pirate, then you have a product that nobody wants.
o The industry is stuck between two contradictory economic models: physical versus virtual.
o The only economic way to reduce piracy was to supply legally online, and at a much lower prices
o Piracy is about pricing and the economic effort you are prepared to make in law enforcement and digital rights management, to support that pricing.