Online music piracy has declined a staggering 20% in Australia during the past year, according to fresh data published by Spotify, which claims its streaming services are playing a part in the reduction.
Unveiled at the government’s Copyright – Online Infringement public forum in Sydney last night, Spotify’s director of economics, Will Page, explained that the legitimate streaming site has gone some way to help reduce file-sharing in the region over the past two years.
A statement from Spotify explained that casual file-sharers (of music) are dropping off, even though the hard-core base remains relatively unchanged.
Page also revealed a perhaps more unsurprising statistic that TV/film piracy in Australia, during the same 12 months, was four times higher than piracy traffic generated by music files - a period which didn’t even include the US airing of Game of Thrones.
Page says, “It’s exciting to see that we are making in-roads into reducing the music piracy problem within such a short space of time in this market. It shows the scope for superior legal services [offered at an accessible price point] to help improve the climate for copyright online.
“Let’s be clear, Australia still faces a massive challenge in turning around its much talked about media piracy challenge, and it always has, and always will, take a combination of public policy and superior legal offerings,” he adds.
Working with analytics company MusicMetric, Spotify completed an extensive study of piracy on Bit Torrent sites in Australia. The full findings from the report will be unveiled at a music industry conference in Brisbane today.
Choice is currently making noise over the relative high prices it says Australians pay for digital TV content and running a campaign attacking the Government's efforts to stem illegal dowloading.
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