9% of 24 million music pirates also pay for downloads online

Interpret, a market research firm focused on entertainment, media and technology, has released a study that polled 64 million people of which 24 million respondents (36%) admitted that they had downloaded music illegally in the past three months. These online surfers confessed they were downloading music illegally through file-sharing networks and BitTorrent, but that doesn’t mean they don’t buy any music.

This figure shows that the problem discussed by the RIAA, BPI and IFPI is far more serious than it was thought. As some observers note that spending millions of dollars on developing new business models instead of paying lawyers might be a good start.

The report that pursued to establish if online pirates pay for downloads showed that 9% of violators who download music illegally have bought a full album online in the past three months. Downloading individual songs is even more popular in this group, with 16 percent indicating that they paid to download an individual song recently.

Interestingly, 49% of music pirates said that downloading music should be cheaper than buying a disc. This means that 51% are fine with the current price point of legal downloads.