London, United Kingdom: Online piracy and its popular sources such as file-sharing and P2P sites are becoming less popular among teenage web users who are shifting to live video streaming, according to a recent study.
In a study which involved 14- to 18-year-old respondents, online research group Music Ally said that file-sharing activities fell by 26 percent in January compared to 42 percent in December 2007. Citing this figure, the group said that file-sharing activities among young users had declined by almost 25 percent in just a year.
While traditional P2P and file-sharing were losing popularity among teenagers, the overall number of people using these online properties has increased by 31 percent in January from 28 percent in December 2007.
Also, consumers who were sharing albums on a regular basis were found to remain high. The study showed that 13 percent of respondents said they use file-sharing sites compared to 10 percent of users who prefer to buy digital copies of songs.
The study also revealed a surprising finding: music lovers in the country are more likely to buy digital copies of songs from legal distributors such as iTunes than to download these through file-sharing sites. According to data, 19 percent of users said they prefer to buy music from legal sites, slightly higher than 18 percent of respondents who said they would rather download songs from illegitimate sources.
According to the research group, the findings had proved that one way to eliminate online piracy is to introduce legitimate online music stores and licensed video streaming websites.
Meanwhile, a recent study conducted by the Institute for Policy Innovation said the music industry is losing more than $12.5 billion every year due to piracy, with majority of such illegal activities happening on the Internet.