Music Industry

Believe it or not, music piracy is still a big, big problem

I can’t figure out why people go through the trouble of stealing music. You have free access to 100 million songs through Spotify’s free tier. You still want to go through the hassle of dealing with torrents, seeding pirate sites, incomplete files, corrupted or missing metadata, and the possibility that a virus may somehow sneak in?

Yet MUSO, a tech company based in the UK, says that music piracy is on the increase. The biggest problems are “stream-ripping” and “stream fraud.” MUSO says that more than there were more than 15 billion visits to illegal download sites last year.

The biggest culprit? Iran. People from that country were responsible for 15% of all visits to music piracy sites. India was in second place with 10.3%. Third? The United States of America with 7%. It’s followed by Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, Mexico, and France.

Half the piracy in the US is due to stream-ripping, usually by grabbing music from YouTube and turning it into an MP3. Worldwide, 33.4% of pirated music comes from stream-ripping. Only a tiny fraction comes from public torrent sites.

Then there’s this issue. Take a look how streaming farms are further warping the music industry.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 38031 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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