Illegal downloading 'increasing'

Whether it's Brahms or Blur, a report out today suggests there's a good chance that many tracks on peoples' MP3 players may have been transferred illegally. It suggests illicit music downloading is at record levels.

More than 40 per cent of online music users have downloaded tracks illegally this year, and nearly one in five people say they're intending to do so again

The report's authors, Entertainment Media Research, says the record industry needs to make legal music buying easier and cheaper.

BPI say illegal downloading is not good for the 'ecology' of music, not good for the creative economy and digital copyright infringement is a problem across the creative industries.

In order to counteract the decline in CD sales, they say they need more revenues from digital music.

They want the Government to legislate so it's easier for the BPI to bring actions against people acting illegally, and they want better enforcement in the way that trading standards will act against producers of counterfeit goods.

In an age of fragmented media they say the role of the record companies is even more important - at the moment music piracy is endemic; illegal downloading dwarfs legal download.

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