Music Ally is long enough in the tooth (17 years old!) to remember the days of doom and gloom in the music industry, when piracy’s growth seemed (to many people, at least) to be unstoppable. So it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate the fact that the music-streaming era really has flipped that on its head.
The latest evidence is a report from the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) outlining the results of its ‘Youth Scoreboard’ research into how 15-24 year-olds in Europe are accessing (among other things) digital content.
We’ll skip straight to the good bit. “There has been a notable decrease in those using illegal sources to access music,” explains the report. “Whereas almost all young people download or stream music online, only 39% of those intentionally using illegal sources do so to access music — a decline of 17 percentage points since 2016.” This backs up other recent data. For example, a report by anti-piracy firm Muso in March found that visits to music-piracy sites had fallen by 59.4% between 2017 and 2018. More recently, an IFPI report found that 27% of music fans are using copyright-infringing services, down from 38% in 2018.
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