Research released by children's protected online learning company Intuitive Media and digital media magazine New Media Age, reveals a worrying new threat in the battle against music piracy. In a survey of nearly 1500 8-13 year olds nearly a third (29%) admitted to sharing music illegally on their phones via Bluetooth with nearly half (45%) of the remaining respondents stating that they'd like to share music in this way.
The problem is by no means a minor threat to music sales - of the 80% of kids who listen to music on the move in some way, a significant 30% do so primarily on their phone, making it an important music device for this demographic. The phone's importance as a music device is further underlined by the growing trend for kids to listen to music out loud on their phones in public places, with 21% admitting to having done so and 26% stating that they would like to.
The research gives a unique new insight into the increasingly important kids mobile market. With 72% of 6-13 year olds now owning their own phone and 26% spending at least £1 or more on content a week, mobile content providers, network operators and media companies can no longer afford to ignore mobile for this demographic.
Robert Hart, co-founder of Intuitive Media, said: "Music sharing on the Internet was identified by the industry as one of the biggest threats they've faced in recent years and this research shows that mobile has got the potential to exacerbate those problems. The children are not aware they are doing anything illegal. Technologies like Bluetooth have been around for a while but it's only now when the handsets are becoming powerful music devices that this problem has really arisen.
"The research shows that kids are really leading the market when it comes to taking advantage of the rich functionality now available on the mobile - if this trend is anything to go by then media owners everywhere need to be taking a serious look at how they're prepared."
Justin Pearse, Mobile Editor of New Media Age, said: "The music capabilities of mobile phones have really exploded in the last few months so this type of illegal music sharing was only to be expected. Nearly three quarters of kids are either already sharing music like this or want to be doing so. With the influx of new high-end handsets that we'd expect to come on stream over Christmas we should expect mobile music swapping to become a truly mass market phenomenon in a matter of weeks or months."
Posted to the site on 8th December 2006
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/20851.php