Spotify Helps to Beat Music Piracy, European Commission Finds

[Batu69]

New research published by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre shows that Spotify is helping to beat piracy. The researchers examined the effects of legal streaming on torrent downloads and found that Spotify displaces piracy. However, the overall impact on revenue is neutral as streaming also cuts legal track sales.

When Spotify launched its first beta in the fall of 2008 we branded it “an alternative to music piracy.”

With the option to stream millions of tracks supported by an occasional ad, or free of ads for a small subscription fee, Spotify appeared to be a serious competitor to unauthorized downloading.

While there has been plenty of anecdotal support for this claim, actual research on the topic has been lacking. A new study published by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre aims to fill this gap.

In the study researchers Luis Aguiar (IPTS) and Joel Waldfogel (NBER) compare Spotify streaming data to download numbers from the 8,000 pirated artists on torrent sites, as well as legal digital track sales.

Based on this data the researchers conclude that Spotify has a clear displacement effect on piracy. For every 47 streams the number of illegal downloads decreases by one.

This is in line with comments from Spotify’s Daniel Ek, who previously argued that the streaming service helps to convert pirates into paying customers.

“According to these results, an additional 47 streams reduces by one the number of tracks obtained without payment,” the paper reads (pdf).

“This piracy displacement is consistent with Ek’s claim that Spotify’s bundled offering harvests revenue from consumers who – or at least from consumption instances – were previously not generating revenue,” the researchers add.

While that’s good news for the music industry, it doesn’t necessarily mean that more revenue is being generated. In addition to piracy, streaming services also impact legal track sales on iTunes and other platforms.

According to the researchers, 137 Spotify streams reduce the number of individual digital track sales by one. Factoring in the revenue per stream and download, the overall impact is relatively neutral.

“Given the current industry’s revenue from track sales ($0.82 per sale) and the average payment received per stream ($0.007 per stream), our sales displacement estimates show that the losses from displaced sales are roughly outweighed by the gains in streaming revenue.”

“In other words, our analysis shows that interactive streaming appears to be revenue-neutral for the recorded music industry,” the researchers add.

More studies are needed to see how streaming services impact the music industry in the long run, but for now it’s safe to conclude that they do indeed help to beat online piracy, as often suggested.

Source

[steven36]

How do you beat something that is still there ? Some artist wont even allow there music to be put on spotify and you can only listen to music for free if you want save it offline if you don’t use a audio recorder you have to pay a fee .

You can go right over to youtube and they have these artist songs on it that are banned on spotify and you can download or listen to them . So if anyone is slowing down piracy its youtube .

But there not beating it because the option is still there . If no one was downloading it no one would post it. So there is a demand for it.

.Someone whos not on the internet all the time is not going to bother making a spotify account much less pay for it . there going to head to youtube . :P

[Sylence]

These so called pirates often tend to have their musics on demand so even if the studies show that pirates use Spotify rather than downloading illegal musics, it all depends on the Spotify itself (i.e if Spotify limits its free musics and features or show too much ads or don't provide on demand musics then pirates will stop using it and will go for torrents and illegal downloads.) of course we always are looking for the cheapest and easiest ways <_<

[steven36]

Its already full of ads the free version is and there are some pirates who pay for it to to stop the ads and to be able download it . But most people are not going to pay. But Youtube there adding were you can pay to remove the ads . I just use a download app and download the music tracks without even having watch the videos.

But on windows I have 3 ways I can watch videos or just stream the music without using youtube site

1. use Cherry player

2. use potplayer

3.use MPV

On Linux Mint I have 2 ways

1.MPV

2. Youtube Browser for SMPlayer witch launches the videos in SMPlayer.

Also I have internet radio apps .for windows and Linux why do I need to bother with signing in with Spotify ?

[mona]

I just use a download app and download the music tracks without even having watch the videos.

May I ask which application do you use for downloading just the music tracks from YT ? Cherry player or something else ?

[dMog]

any one use songza??

[RejZoR]

Spotify helps to beat music piracy? Sure it does!

Spotify is currently not available in your country.

Oh wait, it doesn't.

And I live in a bloody central Europe. Who the hell are they fooling with statements like this? Music industry is a dinosaur. They are clutching to outdated business models and enforcing moronic regional blocks that are no good for anything but to annoy people. Do you know why gaming piracy is not really an issue anymore (even though publishers still so violently say it is)? Because 99% of games can be bought on Steam, GOG and countless other services for good prices. Yeah, I used to pirate games when I was a kid and it was pretty simple and straight forward process. But these days, I just can't be bothered with cracks and all that crap. It's so much easier to just go to Steam or GOG and buy a game I want to play. It's so easy in fact I've bough more games than I can physically play.

What about music? I want to buy MP3's directly it's no go. 90% of services aren't even supported in my country and those that are suck donkey balls (iTunes and their retarded app that I absolutely hate). And so I simply download MP3's that I can't legaly buy the normal way without moronic apps or DRM. Is it my fault that they refuse to take my money just because I live in the "wrong" country? Are my Euros any less worth than someone elses? FU music industry. I want to be honest, but thy just dont' want me to be apparently.

[dMog]

any one else been around since the days of 45's, 33 1/3 lp's 8 tracks cassettes and then cd's.. now mp3 and the other types of electronic music files...(will not even get into that movies debate)...how many times does the music execs expect me to buy my music....and still most of them expected until just recently if i wanted to get one single song i was expected to purchase the entire album...outdated business model is an understatement.... apple for all their faults was something the music industry should of jumped on the day apple introduced on line mp 3 music for sale

and i still maintain 99 cents or 109 cents for a single music file is a windfall profit margin when you consider you do not have press a disc package it and transport it and build buildings to make store and sell them out of world wide

[steven36]

I just use a download app and download the music tracks without even having watch the videos.

May I ask which application do you use for downloading just the music tracks from YT ? Cherry player or something else ?

I use 3D YouTube downloader and 4k video download to download just the tracks :)

[steven36]

any one else been around since the days of 45's, 33 1/3 lp's 8 tracks cassettes and then cd's.. now mp3 and the other types of electronic music files...(will not even get into that movies debate)...how many times does the music execs expect me to buy my music....and still most of them expected until just recently if i wanted to get one single song i was expected to purchase the entire album...outdated business model is an understatement.... apple for all their faults was something the music industry should of jumped on the day apple introduced on line mp 3 music for sale

and i still maintain 99 cents or 109 cents for a single music file is a windfall profit margin when you consider you do not have press a disc package it and transport it and build buildings to make store and sell them out of world wide

If you kept you're old CDs there's no need to buy those again you can just rip them to flacs are wav and you can convert them to mp3 or iTunes rip AAC M4A.

I use to buy a lot of music back before everything become digital but once they started suing music artist for singing there own songs because they hold the copyright I stooped buying it a long time ago. :P

[mona]

I just use a download app and download the music tracks without even having watch the videos.

May I ask which application do you use for downloading just the music tracks from YT ? Cherry player or something else ?

I use 3D YouTube downloader and 4k video download to download just the tracks :)

Thanks for the info. I'm still testing various alternatives. :P

[steven36]

I just use a download app and download the music tracks without even having watch the videos.

May I ask which application do you use for downloading just the music tracks from YT ? Cherry player or something else ?

I use 3D YouTube downloader and 4k video download to download just the tracks :)

Thanks for the info. I'm still testing various alternatives. :P

witch do you prefer mp3 or m4a ? ether app can convert them to mp3

i prefer m4a itunes format works in AIMP or Winamp and you can grab untouched 254 kbps tracks with 3D without converting them .

And you don't even have go YouTube site the app has search built in.

:)

[flitox]

any one else been around since the days of 45's, 33 1/3 lp's 8 tracks cassettes and then cd's.. now mp3 and the other types of electronic music files...(will not even get into that movies debate)...how many times does the music execs expect me to buy my music....and still most of them expected until just recently if i wanted to get one single song i was expected to purchase the entire album...outdated business model is an understatement.... apple for all their faults was something the music industry should of jumped on the day apple introduced on line mp 3 music for sale

and i still maintain 99 cents or 109 cents for a single music file is a windfall profit margin when you consider you do not have press a disc package it and transport it and build buildings to make store and sell them out of world wide

thats one thing i have always wondered.

let's say you buy an album on vinyl and then a couple year later that same album see the light of the day on cd. if you go on to buy the cd, can you ask to have the royalties bit cut off of the price since you already pay for it... thats curious nobody in the USA already went to court for that, reclaiming the money they had to pay twice for the exact same record!

[steven36]

any one else been around since the days of 45's, 33 1/3 lp's 8 tracks cassettes and then cd's.. now mp3 and the other types of electronic music files...(will not even get into that movies debate)...how many times does the music execs expect me to buy my music....and still most of them expected until just recently if i wanted to get one single song i was expected to purchase the entire album...outdated business model is an understatement.... apple for all their faults was something the music industry should of jumped on the day apple introduced on line mp 3 music for sale

and i still maintain 99 cents or 109 cents for a single music file is a windfall profit margin when you consider you do not have press a disc package it and transport it and build buildings to make store and sell them out of world wide

thats one thing i have always wondered.

let's say you buy an album on vinyl and then a couple year later that same album see the light of the day on cd. if you go on to buy the cd, can you ask to have the royalties bit cut off of the price since you already pay for it... thats curious nobody in the USA already went to court for that, reclaiming the money they had to pay twice for the exact same record!

if you went too court for this the Judge would look at you like you was crazy .No one can twist you're arm and make you buy anything . when you make a purchase you're the one who done it . its entertainment not something you have to have like food . If you have old vinyl albums there are collectors who will buy them and you could buy you a new cd or itunes download for it. If you could go to court for this you could sue anyone for making new tech. Old is still usable if you use old tech . :lol:

[flitox]

any one else been around since the days of 45's, 33 1/3 lp's 8 tracks cassettes and then cd's.. now mp3 and the other types of electronic music files...(will not even get into that movies debate)...how many times does the music execs expect me to buy my music....and still most of them expected until just recently if i wanted to get one single song i was expected to purchase the entire album...outdated business model is an understatement.... apple for all their faults was something the music industry should of jumped on the day apple introduced on line mp 3 music for sale

and i still maintain 99 cents or 109 cents for a single music file is a windfall profit margin when you consider you do not have press a disc package it and transport it and build buildings to make store and sell them out of world wide

thats one thing i have always wondered.

let's say you buy an album on vinyl and then a couple year later that same album see the light of the day on cd. if you go on to buy the cd, can you ask to have the royalties bit cut off of the price since you already pay for it... thats curious nobody in the USA already went to court for that, reclaiming the money they had to pay twice for the exact same record!

if you went too court for this the Judge would look at you like you was crazy .No one can twist you're arm and make you buy anything . when you make a purchase you're the one who done it . its entertainment not something you have to have like food . If you have old vinyl albums there are collectors who will buy them and you could buy you a new cd or itunes download for it. If you could go to court for this you could sue anyone for making new tech. Old is still usable if you use old tech . :lol:

yes & no.

yes i'll look crazy cuz people forget that in the price of a record, you have a part that is the artist part.

but once i pay that artist part, i don't see why i have i pay it again just because i get the same record in another format (that it be cd or mp3 or good old tape). i have already pay the band my right for listening to those songs. the media it is on doesn't make it a new record and because of that i should only pay for the production of that new media.

they keep on crying that pricacy is stealing from the artist, but it's them that keep on stealing us and they even got you believing they ain't doing so :P

[steven36]

any one else been around since the days of 45's, 33 1/3 lp's 8 tracks cassettes and then cd's.. now mp3 and the other types of electronic music files...(will not even get into that movies debate)...how many times does the music execs expect me to buy my music....and still most of them expected until just recently if i wanted to get one single song i was expected to purchase the entire album...outdated business model is an understatement.... apple for all their faults was something the music industry should of jumped on the day apple introduced on line mp 3 music for sale

and i still maintain 99 cents or 109 cents for a single music file is a windfall profit margin when you consider you do not have press a disc package it and transport it and build buildings to make store and sell them out of world wide

thats one thing i have always wondered.

let's say you buy an album on vinyl and then a couple year later that same album see the light of the day on cd. if you go on to buy the cd, can you ask to have the royalties bit cut off of the price since you already pay for it... thats curious nobody in the USA already went to court for that, reclaiming the money they had to pay twice for the exact same record!

if you went too court for this the Judge would look at you like you was crazy .No one can twist you're arm and make you buy anything . when you make a purchase you're the one who done it . its entertainment not something you have to have like food . If you have old vinyl albums there are collectors who will buy them and you could buy you a new cd or itunes download for it. If you could go to court for this you could sue anyone for making new tech. Old is still usable if you use old tech . :lol:

yes & no.

yes i'll look crazy cuz people forget that in the price of a record, you have a part that is the artist part.

but once i pay that artist part, i don't see why i have i pay it again just because i get the same record in another format (that it be cd or mp3 or good old tape). i have already pay the band my right for listening to those songs. the media it is on doesn't make it a new record and because of that i should only pay for the production of that new media.

they keep on crying that pricacy is stealing from the artist, but it's them that keep on stealing us and they even got you believing they ain't doing so :P

You don't have to buy again the judge will tell you .use you're old one What do you expect them to do send you a new format every time they invent one? that will never happen . When they came out with CDS they didn't send me new ones or do they anyone else. B)

[flitox]

i'm not asking for a new format to be freebut for only paying for what it has cost to produce it.

i'd curious to see how those majors would react if someone create a website where you could sell 2nd hand mp3s. i bet they would scream thief while it is the exact same thing as selling your records.

[Pequi]

You can download music (and videos) using these sites:

http://www.telechargerunevideo.com/en/

http://en.savefrom.net/

http://deturl.com/

If they are legal or not, I suppose that depends on where you live.

Don't forget Google (Youtube) marks every video and music file with a Unique ID,

so remove the serial with a hex editor if you share.

[CODYQX4]

I just use jDownloader for YouTube videos (cross platform Desktop).

YouTube++ on jailbroken iOS.