New Filesharing Index Shows Filesharing Is Now Mainstream

from the you-can't-fight-culture dept

The data shows just how mainstream filesharing is now. It isn't just members of Anonymous sitting behind their Macbooks downloading the obscure doom metal of Sunn O)))) the culprits are your next door neighbours, your relatives, your own kids and perhaps (probably) even you. That's the problem for the record labels who, along with the government, have tried to stigmatise the practice as much as possible. But those who have grown up getting whatever music they want for free are not suddenly going to become nostalgic vinyl-heads who are willing to pay £11.99 for a CD – to them it makes no sense and the rose-tinted memories of buying a physical record from an actual person don't exist. And the message that filesharing is stealing and equal with nicking a car doesn't hold much water when so many people are busy doing it.

I've sold 1.2 million albums, and the stat is that there's 8 million downloads of that as well illegally.



Nine million people have my record, in England, which is quite a nice feeling.



I'm still selling albums, but I'm selling tickets at the same time. My gig tickets are like £18, and my albums £8, so ... it's all relative.

iTunes has been successful but it depends on a user having an Apple product to put the music on after they've paid for it, and an average kid doesn't have money lying about for an iPhone. Streaming sites like Spotify for music and Netflix, which offers a similar service for film and TV, are an interesting idea and growing rapidly, but at present they are still nowhere near popular enough to challenge torrents, filesharing and the attraction of free music.

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By now, many of you have probably read about Musicmetrics' new Digital Music Index. Musicmetrics took a whole bunch of filesharing data and approximated the location of each downloader in order to get a better understanding of who shares music. What it found isn't really surprising.. While that in itself is marginally interesting, what is even more interesting is the idea that music filesharing has become mainstream With the numbers and locations that the index shows, you can see that despite the harsh penalties imposed on those caught filesharing, people still don't care If so many people are filesharing despite the best efforts of groups like BPI to demonize the practice, what is there to be done? What do the actual musicians think? Well, this is where another interesting aspect of the index comes in. Not only does the index report on the location of those sharing, it also indexed the most downloaded artists. Using this data, Musicmetrics found that Ed Sheeran was the most downloaded artist in all of the UK. So what does he think? It helps him sell tickets If the record labels and the BPI were correct, Ed here would be slowly dying in a gutter somewhere, not selling concert tickets at £18 a pop. But the fact remains, he is. He is succeeding because these filesharers are becoming fans and want to support him. But why do they download instead of buy? What is stopping them? There are too many barriers or not enough options according to the Guardian.The recording industry has itself to blame here. With the high licensing fees it requires from online services like Pandora and Spotify, these services just can't grow to where they can actually compete. This is holding back the music industry more than it helps it. If people can't get the music they want from legal services, they will go to something else that is culturally accepted even if it is not legal.We have already considered what an alternate reality would look like if the music industry had actually accepted change and innovated instead of following its current fight-and-impede approach. By sticking with its current approach of fighting the will of fans, the industry has not only left money on the table, but has made itself culturally obsolete. The fans have already moved on from what the record industry is offering to something better. They have built up a culture around filesharing, and that culture has become mainstream.

Filed Under: file sharing, mainstream