| MUMBAI:
Music piracy remains an ongoing problem in Asia according to the Branded, MTV
and Synovate Music Matters survey released at the 2007 Music Matters Asia Pacific
Music Forum in Hong Kong. In
research that explores music habits and attitudes among young urban Asians, Synovate
surveyed 3,857 respondents aged 15 to 34 years in India, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia,
Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Synovate
director Media Research Asia Pacific, Craig Harvey said that with the proliferation
of digital technologies, music piracy continued to pose a challenge to music industry
organisations in Asia. "The Music Matters survey shows that one quarter of
urban Asian consumers surveyed have downloaded and saved a song from the internet
without paying for it in the past month, and 18 per cent have used a file-sharing
program to share music with others. "Consumers
also appear to underestimate the extent of the piracy problem, with 47 per cent
of respondents surveyed believing that the music industry is doing a good job
at protecting the intellectual property of artists," he said. However Harvey
noted that it was not all bad news, with online music also providing new opportunities
for the industry in Asia. “On
a more positive note, of the relatively healthy 14 per cent of consumers surveyed
who had paid to download music from the internet over the past month, only one
fifth of these (21 per cent) had also purchased music in a physical store, showing
that the web is opening up a whole new market of music consumers across Asia." In
the past month, of the young urban consumers surveyed regionally: •
31 per cent swapped or borrowed a music CD or mini-disc from a friend •
34 per cent purchased music in a physical store •
25 per cent downloaded and saved a song from the internet without paying for it
•
19 per cent ripped or copied music from a CD •
19 per cent burned or copied music onto a CD or DVD
•
19 per cent purchased a bootleg or counterfeit music CD •
18 per cent used a file sharing program to share music with others
• 14 per cent paid to download music online •
Nine per cent purchased a CD or mini-disc online | 
