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More people than ever are downloading music online
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while the RIAA struggles to find an effective response.

According to a Pew Internet survey (October 2003), about 30% of Internet users have downloaded music files to their computer, and about 4% do so on an average day. While this is bad news for the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), it gets worse...

More than two-thirds of Internet users downloading music say that they do not care if it is copyrighted. This is a jump of 6% from Pew's previous survey, in 2000.

The music survey also found that:

72% of younger Americans said they did not care about music copyrights.

61% of users (aged between 30-49) did not care about copyrights.

4 out of 5 students are unconcerned about copyrights.

Furthermore, the report shows that "American's attitude towards copyrighted material online has remained dismissive."

The top reasons file sharers show ambivalence towards copyright issues include:

A feeling that downloading music online supplements their regular purchasing habits.
It's a convenient way to sample new music.
A belief that CD prices are too high, or that too little profit goes to artists.
The music may not be available offline.
A belief that they are entitled to "fair use" of the music they've purchased.

Years ago the RIAA won its case against the original Napster. Shortly after the Napster verdict, the RIAA lost a similar case against Morpheus and Grokster when the court ruled that file-sharing software is legal, even if it could be used for illegal purposes.

But the bad news is that the Recording Industry Association of America has now shifted their tactics from targeting file sharing networks, and now target ISPs and individual users instead. The RIAA won a case in January 2003 that forced Verizon to release the names of Verizon customers that were suspected of breaking copyright infringement laws.

And in more recent developments, the RIAA has sent letters to p2p file sharing networks demanding them to "immediately cease-and-desist from enabling and inducing the infringement of RIAA member sound recordings."

Unless the RIAA's new tactics are successful, several trends identified in the Pew report suggest that downloading music online will keep growing. And the music survey also showed that avid Internet users were more likely to download music files.

Here were the music survey findings:

41% of broadband users have downloaded music files.
32% of daily users have downloaded files, vs. 27% for less-frequent users.

Experienced users with fast connections are some of the best customers at many e-commerce sites. However, if they are sharing copy-righted music files, they may find themselves in the RIAA's sights.

Remember, using a legitimately licensed legal music site is the ONLY way to guarantee risk-free music downloading online.

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