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[March 09, 2010]

'Music industry fails to promote legal web services - study'

Mar 09, 2010 (DMEUROPE via COMTEX) -- More must be done to make UK consumers aware of legal options to purchase music online before turning to enforcement, according to research from Consumer Focus. The consumer group believes that the growth of the legal online music market is the best way to combat online copyright infringement, but its new research shows that the music industry is failing to promote the many legal alternatives. The research shows that 4 in 10 UK consumers cannot name a single online music service, despite there being more than 20 services on the market.

Almost 9 in 10 (85%) consumers who are aware of online music services, have only heard of two established brands AcaeaEURoe iTunes and Amazon. The research shows that most consumers do not know where they can buy music online AcaeaEURoe a problem which is contributing to the current high levels of online copyright infringement. Before adopting an enforcement approach to copyright infringement, Consumer Focus believes that it is only fair for the music industry to do more to promote legal services.

This would allow the music industry to generate more sales without the need for prosecutions, whose costs end up being met by all consumers.

To further encourage the growth of legal online music services Consumer Focus is also calling for reform of UK's copyright licensing system to make it easier for online music services to offer copyrighted works to consumers legally. It believes that this would encourage the growth of more legal alternatives such as streaming, 'all you can eat', micropayment, advertisement or subscription based models. Consumer Focus does not condone online copyright infringement, but views it as the inevitable consequence of the music industry's failure to provide and promote legal music services.

Distributed for DMeurope.com via M2 Communications (www.m2.com)

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