31 January 2006
– International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) Digital Music Report 2006 shows 2 million songs online.
– More needed from telcos and ISPs to promote legal music.
– Sales of music via the internet and mobile phones proliferated and spread across the world in 2005, with further significant growth promised in the coming year.
Findings released in IFPI’s Digital Music Report 2006 confirm the legitimate digital music business is steadily pushing back on digital piracy.
The report presents a comprehensive review of the development of the digital music market internationally and shows music fans downloaded 420 million single tracks from the internet last year – 20 times more than two years earlier.
In addition, the volume of music licensed by record companies doubled to more than two million songs. Digital music now accounts for about 6 per cent of record companies’ revenues, up from practically zero two years ago.
In Europe’s two biggest digital markets, UK and Germany, new IFPI research indicates more music fans are legally downloading music than illegally file-swapping.
The mobile phone became a portable music device in 2005, the first year in which song downloads to mobile phones spread internationally. Record companies are seeing sharply increased sales of master ringtones (excerpts of original artist recordings).
RIANZ CEO Campbell Smith said: "The recent growth in the digital music market and the wider digital economy is exciting for all parties involved - creators, producers and investors in music, and the music consumer. What our local industry and our partners - the service providers and the music distributors - must focus on now is ensuring that New Zealand consumers are able to enjoy the same benefits as consumers in other parts of the world sooner rather than later."
IFPI Chairman and CEO John Kennedy said: “Two years ago, few could have predicted the extraordinary developments we are seeing in the digital music business today. And there will be further significant growth in 2006 as the digital music market continues to take shape.
The Digital Music Report shows how music is helping drive economic activity worth tens of billions of dollars worldwide. It also identifies key challenges, notably over intellectual property protection, that need to be faced if the digital music business is to sustain its success.
Kennedy continues “The challenges we now face are far too big for any complacency, however. In particular we need more cooperation from service providers and music distributors, to help protect intellectual property and contain piracy. It is not enough that they share in the success of the digital music business – they need to take on their share of the responsibilities as well.”
2005 has seen the new digital market take shape as courts around the world tipped the scales against unauthorised services and the market diversified into new formats and distribution channels.
A series of court judgements against unauthorised file-sharing services in late 2005 – in the US, Australia, Taiwan and Korea - has helped transform the market environment for digital music and reshape consumer attitudes to illegal file-sharing.
Illegal activity on peer-to-peer networks has stayed static in the last year in comparison to a 26 per cent increase in worldwide broadband use.
Key challenges for the industry and its partners
IFPI says there are a number of key challenges facing the music industry at the start of 2006 if it is to see further growth.
Above all, governments and the music industry’s partners in the digital marketplace need to continue to place copyright, rights management and the campaign against piracy at the top of the digital agenda.
Specifically, the music business needs support for Digital Rights Management, which is the key enabler of digital music services allowing new and flexible uses by consumers. It also needs more cooperation from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in protecting music from piracy on their networks.
New potentially exciting digital distribution channels for music are in the pipeline such as podcasting and digital radio. But key licensing issues need to be resolved for these new channels to realise their market potential. In the US, the first publicly-available legal peer-to-peer service, iMesh, has been launched.
New IFPI consumer research unveiled
New consumer research commissioned from Jupiter and published today by IFPI shows 6 per cent of internet users regularly download legally in the UK and Germany, compared to 5 per cent who regularly swap files illegally.
Shifting illegal file-sharers to legal digital services is, however, a long-term challenge. The research indicates that legal downloaders are more likely to be starting from scratch than migrating from unauthorised sites. Only one in five legal music downloaders is also an illegal file-swapper underlining the vital role of consumer education and marketing in the new legal music market.
The same research shows that the music industry’s education and deterrence activities are helping bring about a widespread change in consumer attitudes to digital music. Every second person in Europe who has cut back on illegally file-sharing has done so out of concern for the legal consequences.
Actions against illegal file-sharing, which in 2005 were extended to nearly 20,000 cases against uploaders in 17 countries, will be stepped up and spread to new countries in 2006.
They are supported by four separate global education campaigns which IFPI launched in 2005 - including the Childnet/Pro-music.org information campaign for young people and Digital File Check, the free software launched to help internet users enjoy music safely and legally on their computers (www.ifpi.org).
Click here for a PDF copy of the IFPI 06 Digital Music Report
|
printable version >> |
