There are a number of defenses used for downloading pirated music.  Music prices are too high. Artists don’t see the money anyway. I hate the music industry. But here’s one I didn’t think of – “I didn’t know there were legal alternatives”.

Consumer Focus, the UK government-backed watchdog, sees legal online music as the best way to tackle online copyright infringement. Okay – so far so good. It then goes on to criticise the music industry for failing to promote the many legal alternatives. 

Eh?

It said four out of ten people in their survey couldn’t name a single online music service at all – despite their being 20 of them. I’m going to go out on a limb and say those 40% aren’t the ones downloading music. They’re the 40% who struggle to operate a computer beyond the things their kids have shown them how to do – for the 5th time – this week.

They found that 90% of the 60% who did know about legal online music could only name iTunes and Amazon. How many legal alternatives do you need before you use them?  3? 4? 10? Surely you need only one decent option?

In New Zealand, the music industry has been trying to promote legit music purchases through its Love Music website so that would please Consumer Focus. I wonder what difference it has made? Do we have lower rates of music piracy in New Zealand than elsewhere? I doubt it.

People download free music because its free. Its cheap on itunes (I’ve certainly got my $2.39 worth from Lada Gaga’s Bad Romance).  But free is cheaper. Free is the best value (from the purchaser’s perspective).

So I could have got Bad Romance for free. Why then, did I purchase it?

Two reasons. Its easy to use itunes to find, download, and manage music. I’m paying for the whole integrated convenient experience, not just the music. And secondly, I feel better about paying than not paying. I worry that LadaGaga might not be rewarded appropriately for her musical skills in the event that I don’t pay.

Its definitely a combination of those two things. Individually they might not be enough. But my point is, there is a good user experience available – and surely every reasonable computer user has at least heard of iTunes. A lack of awareness around legal alternatives is not driving music piracy.