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Average teen has 800+ illegal songs on his MP3 player

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June 17, 2008, 6:06 PM EST

Legal music downloads have certainly gained a lot of traction in recent years, thanks in part to online offerings such as the iTunes Store and the labels’ decision to finally start dropping DRM restrictions. But the fact that more and more ways to legally acquire music are available these days doesn’t particularly mean that piracy is close to coming to an end.

In fact, a recent study by the University of Hertfordshire has found that the average 14- to 24-year-old has almost 900 illegal tracks on their MP3 players. The survey, which questioned 1,200 participants, also revealed that nearly two-thirds of young people download music tracks illegally on an average of 53 songs per month.

The music industry has been struggling to cope with free-falling CD sales for some time now, and the study further shows how dramatically music consumption has changed. The British Music Rights group (which commissioned the research) has been campaigning to make legal music services more appealing, and feels the best way to do it is to have ISPs offer unlimited music download services as an additional fee to a standard broadband package. In fact, they are reportedly expecting agreements with providers such as Virgin Media in the next few weeks.

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User Comments (7)

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TimeParadoX
on June 17, 2008
7:51 PM
I don't even have a MP3.

Obi-Wan Jerkobi
on June 17, 2008
10:01 PM
The songs that I have ever Limewire'd/Torrented are songs that I already own but the cd is either lost or broken. I already paid for the songs technically.

---agissi---
on June 17, 2008
10:27 PM
Yeah Im talking on behalf of the Midwest in the USA, thats so far off its revolting.

windmill007
on June 18, 2008
9:57 AM
Ya because that's all the MP3 player will hold. Now if they asked on there computer

dustin_ds3000
on June 18, 2008
12:22 PM
i have 2000+ illegal songs on my zune woooow

Prosercunus
on June 18, 2008
7:57 PM
How do you even do a study like this? All these studies that come out I call BS on almost all of them.

JudaZ
on June 19, 2008
8:48 PM
25000+ and counting

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