Punishing UK downloaders 'will alienate customers'

Europe's internet downloaders are avid music fans who own multiple gadgets and are as likely to buy a CD as anyone else, according to research released on Wednesday.

The image belies the notion of the slacker teenager trawling the internet for free music to hoard. They are regular shoppers in record stores today, and they are very likely to buy song downloads in the future, the researchers said.

Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Jupiter Research in London, told Reuters: "There are strong music fans within the file-sharing community."

"They are more likely to listen to digital radio and visit artist websites. There is compelling evidence that this group is the bedrock community for those willing to pay for legitimate [online] music services in the future," Mulligan added.

The music industry has waged an all-out war on internet file-sharing and CD burning, which it blames for a three-year decline in sales of recorded music.

In the US, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents the world's big five music companies, Universal Music, Warner Music, EMI, BMG, and Sony Music, has begun suing individual music-swappers.

In Europe, industry trade bodies and the major music labels have tried a gentler tactic, promoting industry-backed services and educating consumers that downloading copyright-protected media is an illegal activity.

Europe's online downloaders differ from their North American counterparts, said Chris Colman, European, Middle East and Africa managing director of Canada's Sandvine, a technology start-up that works with internet service providers to minimise the escalating bandwidth costs associated with file-sharing.

European downloaders prefer services such as WinMX and Donkey, which are havens for film, software and music videos. Services such as Kazaa, which runs on the file-sharing Fasttrack technology and are teeming with songs, are more popular in North America, Colman said.

North Americans and Europeans appear to be using peer-to-peer services for different purposes, but there is one constant: file-sharing usage is escalating as the market for high-speed, broadband internet grows, he said.

"We're finding that new broadband subscribers are sharing files earlier and existing broadband subscribers are sharing files more," Colman said.

Jupiter's data, from a survey of 5,000 internet users this summer in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy, Spain, France and Germany, backs up Sandvine's findings.

According to Mulligan, 15 per cent of Europeans surveyed download a movie each month from a free file-sharing service. Spain tops the list with 38 per cent admitting to downloading a movie each month.

In contrast, a separate Jupiter survey of US Internet users reported that 12 per cent of Americans download a video file each month.

Mulligan, for one, says it would be a mistake for Hollywood and television executives to embark on a legal crackdown against this consumer segment, which could some day be a media company's best customers.

"I think there's definitely an opportunity for television companies and movie studios alike to harness an emerging pattern of consumption here," Mulligan said.