Social Networks Impact Music Downloads; Piracy Growing

While music piracy is on the rise and legal downloads of music are slowing down, social networks are having a serious impact on the way users consume music, according to a survey by Entertainment Media Research (EMR) and law firm Olswang, MarketingCharts reports.

The survey interviewed 1,700 music consumers age 13-60 and found that music is important to social networkers: 39 percent have embedded music in their personal profiles.

70 percent said they embed music to show off their taste; half said music is a good way to reflect personality.

Some other survey findings:

• Some 53 percent of people actively surf social networking sites to find music.
• 30 percent said they went on to buy or download music that they had discovered on a social network site (for MySpace, the proportion is 36 percent).
• On popular sites the numbers of people who use sites to find music increase - for MySpace and Bebo, 75 percent and 72 percent, respectively, and 66 percent for YouTube.
• 46 percent say they wish it were easier to purchase music they had discovered on social networking sites - for example via a “buy now” button on the site.
• The number of those saying they illegally download music tracks has increased, from 40 percent in 2005 and 36 percent in 2006 to 43 percent in 2007.

MarketingCharts provides more charts and data.

Sources: BBC News and The Guardian