A study from Digital Life America shows that by more than 2 to 1 those who have downloaded free or paid music say that P2P should be legal.

Consumers who have downloaded online music are certainly the most in the know. They use online music services like iTunes and Napster, download from band web sites, and share via email, IM, P2P, or portable music player copying. These are the real music fans. They are strongly in favor of file sharing, more so than other consumers who are only peripherally aware of P2P.

This music lover group is not buying the black and white propaganda that P2P is evil and hurts legitimate music. Instead they see that P2P allows people to find new artists and try both new and old music before they buy it. They also know that P2P is simply a platform for community distribution. Its use goes far beyond illegal copyright infringement. P2P is used for millions of legitimate files, such as promotional songs and videos, non-copyrighted music, secured music (from Altnet,Weedshare, and others), and much more.

This large knowledgeable group of Internet music lovers is a problem for the major recording labels. Internet music fans support current open file sharing networks. They will not favor the closed P2P services supported by the major labels. Instead the closed services are likely to cannibalize existing paid online music channels. Based on this study, the major labels would be best served by participating in open P2P networks, such as through secured files or music subscriptions.

Marc Freedman

RazorPop, developer of TrustyFiles, the leading multiple network P2P file sharing software

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