Government Anti-Piracy Measures Working, Music Industry Says

Industry profits from digital music are on the rise as industry-owned music download services expand and gain acceptance, anti-piracy efforts take hold in some countries, and internet intermediaries join in, music industry representatives said today.

“As we enter 2012, there are good reasons for optimism in the world of digital music,” Frances Moore, CEO of IFPI (the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), said in a statement announcing the IFPI digital music report for 2012. “Legal services with expanding audiences have reached across the globe and consumer choice has been revolutionised. Meanwhile momentum is building in the fight against piracy as governments and a growing circle of intermediaries engage with our industry.”

Services such as iTunes, Spotify and Deezer have rapidly expanded into new markets, IFPI said, putting the major international digital music services in 58 countries, compared to 23 one year ago. Digital music revenues increased by 8 percent to US $5.2 billion in 2011.

IFPI reported that France’s controversial HADOPI graduated response law has led to a 26 percent decline in use of unauthorised content via peer-to-peer devices, as some two million users stopped the activity “since warning notices were first sent out in October 2010.” IFPI also cited a new study that found HADOPI let to 23 percent more iTunes sales in France than if HADOPI had not existed.

HADOPI is the French acronym for the high-level authority for the diffusion of works and the protection of rights on the internet (IPW, Enforcement, 23 October 2009).

IFPI also pointed positively to a similar law in New Zealand, and the upcoming 2012 implementation of an agreement struck in the United States last July between the music industry and internet service providers.

The US deal established a system of copyright alerts to be sent to “internet subscribers when their accounts are being misused to infringe copyright law,” IFPI said, adding that a “system of ‘mitigation measures’ aims to deter repeat infringements by those who ignore repeated alerts.”

Highlights of the IFPI Digital Music Report 2012 are here [pdf]. http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/DMR2012_key_facts_and_figures.pdf