BPI Reports, No Decrease in Illegal Downloading

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has issued a new report showing that illegal P2P filesharing in the UK is not declining. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that non-P2P methods of sharing are on the increase.

BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said the findings were "disappointing" and expressed concern at a rise in illegal downloads from blogs and newsgroups.

A survey conducted for the BPI by Harris Interactive found that one in three consumers access or share music on P2P or via other web sources.

More than 3,000 people aged between 16 and 54 took part in the online poll.

The survey also found that in the past six months the use of non-P2P sources all increased significantly. Foreign MP3 pay sites saw the biggest increase in usage (47%), while MP3 search engines grew by 28% and blog links to cyberlockers increased by 18%.

Just under half (47%) of respondents in the survey said they use P2P to acquire music on a weekly basis. Of those who acquire music online illegally, some 31% do it on a daily basis.

While other ways of acquiring music illegally are on the rise, P2P remains the dominant route, with users downloading an average of nine tracks each a month this way. This drops to six tracks a month on average being sourced from forums and blogs and 4.9 songs from MP3 pay sites.

BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor says, “The growth in other, non-P2P methods of downloading music illegally is a concern and highlights the importance of including a mechanism in the Digital Economy Bill to deal with threats other than P2P.”

Despite the levels of piracy, the BPI was able to announce in October that we are living in "the era of the digital single", after figures revealed 2009 was biggest ever year for UK singles, with more than 117m sold.

Of those, 98.6% were purchased in digital formats. However, the BPI estimate there are still more than a billion illegal downloads every year in the UK.

Mr Taylor said that figure demonstrated how the market could "explode" if the government tackled illegal filesharing.