Half Of UK Music Downloaders Use File Sharing Sites

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

02 March 2009

A recent survey by Internet Service Provider (ISP) Tiscali has revealed that around half of all internet users in the UK have visited file-sharing websites to download files, with many admitting to still using them.

According to the report - which was conducted anonymously - around 46% of those asked admitted to obtaining music files from illegal P2P sites, although 53% of respondents claimed that they have never knowingly downloaded music illegally.

83% of people questioned stated that they still paid for music, with 69% of respondents spending an average of GPB10 a month on music. iTunes seemed to be the most preferred method of downloading music, with 54% of individuals naming it as their main source for downloads.

However, 17% of the survey's respondents admitted to spending nothing.

With regards to awareness of copyright laws, around 75% of those surveyed claimed to understand what made music legal or illegal, although half of those questioned believe more could be done by the government and the music industry to raise awareness of the implications of illegal file-sharing.

Despite the results, Neal McCleave, the Managing director of media services at Tiscali, concluded that individuals do not yet seem to fully grasp the problems associated with illegal file-sharing, stating that many feel they can balance a mixture of illegal and legal files by topping up a legitimate music collection with the occasional illegal download.

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