Some news caught my eye today, only because it was conducted by the University of Hertfordshire, which I visited the other day. It involves the whole media thing, which is what I want to go and do at university. It’s my duty to be interested in this, I suppose.
A quick survey of people’s iPod’s owned by people between the ages of 14-24 showed that there was an average of 842 illegally downloaded songs on them. With other portable music players, this averaged out at about 800 illegal songs per person. That’s a lot, if you must know. Given that the average music player holds 1770 songs, that is quite a lot of pirated music.
Half the kids surveyed said they were also happy to share music they owned online. Half of the CDs they owned had been copied and sent to friends and family, or they were copies themselves.
Well, if it wasn’t for them, there would be no file sharing at all. Which is why the British Music Rights (BMR) company told the students of Hertfordshire University to find out why and, indeed, how to stop them.
Their conclusion was simple – A subscription service where people could download as many songs as they wanted for a fixed price each month. Sorted. You can do that with certain sites already at the moment, but prices are so unappealing, the whole ‘Legal for £4 or the same thing for free’ appeal sticks around. But could shock tactics work? There’s nothing stopping them, I suppose…
I’m all for buying songs. When music is a passion, the cost shouldn’t stop you. =p. I also think that sharing isn’t as bad, because I wouldn’t know quite a few artists if nobody had told me about them.
Althought there is something really fishy about the consideration people have for things they find on the Internet. Not many people would enter a store and steal the stuff inside… but that doesn’t seem to be a problem at all on the Internet. Everybody agrees to say that it’s not necessary a bad thing…
Just my random input.