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Those crazy kids. It seems that more and more of them think it’s actually cool to pay for music. Who knew? The Internet analysts at investment bank Piper Jaffray, who surveyed nearly 500 teenagers in 11 high schools across the country, released a report late Monday about teens and music buying. According to the survey, 36 percent of the teens that download music online said they purchase music legally from stores like Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes, Napster (NAPS) , RealNetwork’s (RNWK) Rhapsody and Yahoo!’s (YHOO) Y! Music Unlimited. Of course, that means that 64 percent said they prefer to get their music for free from peer-to-peer file sharing services like Kazaa, Morpheus and Limewire. So forgive music industry bigwigs if they are not doing cartwheels about the findings. But here is the good news for record labels. When Piper Jaffray did a similar survey of teens in the fall of last year, only 28 percent said they purchase tracks from online music stores. And two years ago, just 20 percent said they were like, totally lame, and you know, paid money to download songs. So it has to be considered encouraging that, slowly but surely, user habits are changing and teens are becoming more used to paying for copyrighted content. The Apple model of charging listeners per track or album is what teens seem to prefer most. That means subscription services like Napster will continue to face an uphill battle. According to the Piper Jaffray survey, just 35 percent of the teens said they would be interested in paying $15 a month for an online music subscription service, essentially unchanged from the fall 2006 survey and two years ago. Not surprisingly, then, iTunes held a commanding market share lead over its rivals according to the survey, with 89 percent of the teens who buy online music saying they go to iTunes for it. “Other” actually came in second place with 7 percent, while only 3 percent of the teens surveyed said they are Napster users. Rhapsody and Yahoo brought up the rear with 1 percent. If there’s any solace for Apple’s competitors to take from these results, it is that iTunes’ popularity slipped from 91 percent during the fall of last year. Small consolation, to be sure. But as tough as it is for any online music store not named iTunes, it could be a lot worse for them. The music retailers that are really taking it on the chin are the ones that actually operate those quaint brick-and-mortar stores. Only 30 percent of the teens surveyed said they buy music from retail stores, down from 47 percent in the fall of 2005. I’m not going to shed any tears for the big overpriced music chains like FYE or Virgin Megastores or big-box establishments like Wal-Mart and Best Buy. But it is kind of sad that a great independent chain like Tower Records was forced to close the doors of all its retail outlets last year. And the small mom-and-pop record store, like the fictional one depicted in Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity,” might eventually go the way of the dodo. It’s unfortunate but technology really is helping to make the record store obsolete. I can’t remember the last time I bought a CD from Amazon.com, let alone at a shop in the real world. It’s just so much faster and more convenient to get my music fix from iTunes. And if teens are growing up without ever knowing what it’s like to step into a record store, then it’s only going to get tougher for the standalone music retailer to survive. Posted by Paul R. La Monica 9:41 am 8 Comments
 | Add a comment GEO, Dan was not justifying copyright violation, he was simply trying to point out that the article has semantically inaccurate language. I doubt that he’s trying to rationalize or justify anything; the fact of the matter is that copyright violation is not technically theft as defined by the laws in North America. If we want people to be educated about this stuff, shouldn’t we be providing them with information that is accurate? Copyright violation is wrong (in my opinion, and probably Dan’s though I can’t speak for him), the copyright act and allows those whose rights are violated to seek compensation for the infringement, but by the laws that govern citizens such as yourself in Elk Grove, downloading music from the internet is not technically theft. It is just semantics, but aren’t we better off if we’re educating people using the correct terminology? Posted By Jordan, Montreal, QC, Canada : April 13, 2007 12:12 pm
Dan Stephens wrote: “Copyright violation is not theft.” Dan Stephens doesn’t know what he is talking about. Dan Stephens seems to be rationalizing his own theft of copyrighted material. Dan Stephens will never undrestand this until someone uses his creative works without payment and as a result, he can’t pay his own bills. Posted By GEO - Elk Grove, CA : April 11, 2007 3:09 am
You’re exactly right Dan, and when your employer fails to pay you for your work, they have not stolen from you, although you would probably like the courts to believe that they have. Posted By Phillip McRevis Intercourse, PA : April 10, 2007 5:44 pm
If I encoded a file from a purchased CD and “loaned” it a friend to listen to, who then listened to it, liked it and then purchased the song off of Itunes or Walmart.com did I commit a crime? According to how I currently understand the law, yes. If that friend then decided that they didn’t like it and deleted it? Still yes. Is that methodology responsible for music sales? Yes. Is that a good thing for the music business? Yes. Okay, prove it… I myself have purchased quite a bit of music because I listened to it after a friend “loaned” me a version of it. I personally believe that the artist should be paid for their work and my personal choice is to pay for it. Mind you that I pay for 1 (one) copy. I have three media players. After I pay for it, only I listen to it, I cannot listen to it in more than one place at a time. I will not buy 3 (three) copies as the RIAA would have me do. That’s ridiculous. It seems that there is an attempt to mandate personal responsiblity over greed. It will never happen, get over it. Too many people are too selfish and greedy to purchase every track they listen to if they don’t have to. And the record companies are greedily trying to force them to. Not going to happen, too many smart greedy people. Get over it. Millions will be wasted in attempting to enforce this, and ultimately it will not succeed. Posted By PK, Irvine, California. : April 10, 2007 2:34 pm
Absolutely. We should wave the United States Code in these kids’ faces and scream “You violated the copyright holder’s exclusive rights under Section 106 of Title 17!!!” This is not about educating people about copyright law, the point is by copying without permission you are in essence stealing the money out of someone’s pocket because the alternative in most cases would have been to pay for your own copy. It is not as the previous comment suggested, “extremely important to keep this distinction clear,” it is much more important to keep pounding the message home that the behavior is wrong. Posted By Justin Jordan, Los Angeles, CA : April 10, 2007 12:36 pm
I don’t consider retailers being shut down to be a bad thing. The only value retail stores ever added to the industry was they were once the best distribution method available. Now the industry has evolved to the point where box store retailers add almost zero value to the supply chain. It won’t be long before software outlets and video rental stores are on the extinct list too. As far as kids paying for protected content, it’s not about the money. It’s about what you GET for that money. Right now these companies are imposing restrictions on how you can view content you are PAYING for. ie, what players you can view it on and what hardware you can view it on. If you get a new PC, all your old licensed music becomes suddenly inaccessible because the certificate isn’t transferrable to another computer. That’s ridiculous. It punishes the people who were willing to give paying for content a fair shake. Most people feel you should get more solid, less restricted rights to the content for your money. If you pay for a song, it should be in a generic, industry-standard compatible format playable on any player you choose to use. Furthermore you should be able to listen to it on any computer or vehicle you own, just as if you physically owned the CD. The only difference between owning the CD and paying to download the song should be that you aren’t burdened with the hassle of physically transferring the CD between your living room, your car, and your computer. That’s supposed to be the beauty of digital media. CONVENIENCE. Instead it gets turned into a “how can I write my software so that they will have to pay for a song 3 times to listen to it in 3 places” money grab. That’s BS. That is the number one reason why pay-to-download is not catching on. Because it’s still a raw deal to people who are trying to do the right thing. Posted By JR, Burlington VT : April 10, 2007 12:16 pm
Copyright violation is not theft. Propagating this myth only clouds the issue. If a teen downloads a song from a p2p service, they have not stolen it — although this is the equivalence that the RIAA would like you to make in your mind and has been attempting to legislate equivalence of. Copyright violation can happen in a lot of ways. If you tape tomorrow’s episode of Lost and give it to a friend to watch, you have committed a copyright violation, you did not, however, STEAL the show and no theft occurred. It’s extremely important to keep this distinction clear. Posted By Dan Stephans, Minnesota : April 10, 2007 10:37 am
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Teens will never know what QUALITY sound is, either. The best mp3 is very inferior in quality to a CD or certainly a record. Score victories for iTUnes, the record LABEL, and convienince. Loss for rational, integral thought.