Catégorie : News

La loi réprimant le téléchargement illégal (loi Hadopi) est un « système qui fonctionne », a considéré lundi le président d’Universal Music France (Vivendi), en estimant qu’environ 2,2 millions de personnes ont cessé d’échanger de manière illégale leurs fichiers musicaux.

« Le principe de l’Hadopi, c’est une pédagogie pour amener les gens à changer de pratique. On ne peut que se réjouir que ce soit un système qui fonctionne », a déclaré Pascal Nègre au quotidien économique Les Echos, soulignant que « personne n’est passé devant le juge » en France contrairement, selon lui, à l’Allemagne « où il y a 70.000 personnes devant les tribunaux ».

« En France, on peut dire que, grosso modo, 2,2 millions de visiteurs uniques ont quitté le +peer to peer+ » (échanges de fichiers), a relevé M. Nègre. « Nous avons eu 800.000 visiteurs de plus sur +streaming+ (diffusion en flux) et 1,2 million sont arrivés sur les sites payants de téléchargement ».

« La France est le pays dans lequel il y a plus de gens qui ont quitté le +peer to peer+ et dans lequel la progression des ventes numériques est plus importante que dans les autres pays », a-t-il souligné.

Par ailleurs, M. Nègre a indiqué qu’en 2011 le marché de la musique « va encore connaître une baisse mais elle sera limitée à -3%, -3,5%. On est très loin des -15%, -20% d’il y a quelques années ».

Une situation qui contraste avec les Etats-Unis où « on assiste à un clair retournement de la situation et ce n’est pas un épiphénomène. Ils font +50% sur les ventes digitales, surtout grâce à iTunes et Amazon », a-t-il précisé.

Les ventes par téléchargement ont progressé « d’environ 15% en 2011 » en France et « l’abonnement progresse de 60% dans l’Hexagone, par rapport à 2010. Au total, la progression dans le digital devrait atteindre de 20 à 25% et représenter 25% du marché ».

« Malheureusement, l’an dernier, les ventes de CD reculeraient encore d’environ 8%. La tendance commence à s’inverser, mais la musique n’est toujours pas sortie de la crise en France », a-t-il noté.

Studios, networks and other content providers have gotten more fodder for their argument that governments need to crack down on online video piracy, including by blocking access to domain names of infringing sites.

The Hague court in the Netherlands has ruled that Dutch ISPs Ziggo and XS4All must block access to Web site The Pirate Bay, according to Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, which represent Dutch video and music producers and which sought that court order.

« The court acknowledges that the ordered blocking also affects subscribers who didn’t infringe copyrights, » said BRIEN in a statement. « However, the interests of these subscribers, which are damaged by the IP- and DNS-block, should be considered limited according to the court because the legal content on The Pirate Bay is marginal. »

Some opponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), currently being vetted in the U.S. House, have argued that the increased authority it gives content providers to combat alleged piracy, including blocking of domain names with a court’s approval, threatens the openness and even viability of the Internet, a charge content owners suggest is alarmist and unfounded hyperbole. According to SOPA supporters, the move buttresses a decision in an Antwerp court of appeals last September in which a pair of ISPs was also ordered to block Pirate Bay. Italy took a similar step last year.

Major international music services now in 58 countries, up from 23 in January 2011
Digital music revenues up 8 per cent to US$5.2 billion
Anti-piracy action makes an impact in France, New Zealand. US to follow in 2012

The digital music business saw unprecedented global expansion in 2011, while key steps forward were taken in several markets to help tackle digital piracy.

With rapid expansion into new markets by services such as iTunes, Spotify and Deezer, the major international digital music services are now present in 58 countries, compared to only 23 at the start of 2011.

Consumers are benefitting from a widening choice of services for experiencing digital music. In 2011, subscription services expanded and linked with new partners to reach new audiences. Meanwhile cloud technology is helping transform the way fans manage and store their music.

Global revenues to record companies grew by an estimated 8 per cent to US$5.2 billion in 2011 – a faster rate than 2010 – with strong consumer demand for both single track downloads (up 11 per cent by volume), digital albums (up 24 per cent by volume) and fast-expanding subscription services. The number of users paying to subscribe to a music service leapt by 65 per cent in 2011 to 13.4 million worldwide, according to IFPI estimates.

In the US, the world’s largest music market, digital channels have overtaken physical formats to become the primary source of revenues for record companies. Globally, 32 per cent of music industry revenues come from digital sources, far surpassing the film, newspaper and book sectors. New services launched across Latin America, while in China record companies are working in a landmark partnership with the largest internet company Baidu.

IFPI’s Digital Music Report 2012 is published today, providing a comprehensive overview and analysis of the global digital music business at the start of 2012.
Commenting on the Report, Frances Moore, CEO of IFPI, said:  “As we enter 2012, there are good reasons for optimism in the world of digital music.  Legal services with expanding audiences have reached across the globe and consumer choice has been revolutionised. Meanwhile momentum is building in the fight against piracy as governments and a growing circle of intermediaries engage with our industry.

“Any complacency now, however, would be a great mistake.  Our digital business is progressing in spite of the environment in which it operates, not because of it. In 2012 the momentum needs to build further. We need legislation from governments with coordinated measures that deal with piracy effectively and in all its forms. We also need more cooperation from online intermediaries such as search engines and advertisers to support the legal digital music business.”

Positive momentum but legal environment remains a huge problem

Piracy remains an enormous barrier to sustainable growth in digital music. Globally, one in four internet users (28%) regularly access unlicensed services, according to IFPI/Nielsen. This is rigging the market for legitimate services, stunting growth and jeopardising investment in music. IFPI advocates an inclusive combination of graduated response, site-blocking and other measures to tackle the problem.

There has been positive momentum in the fight against piracy in 2011.  In France, the introduction of the new Hadopi graduated response law has seen peer-to-peer (P2P) piracy levels decline by 26 per cent, with around two million P2P users stopping the activity since warning notices were first sent out in October 2010 according to IFPI/Nielsen.

A newly-published academic study finds evidence that Hadopi has had a positive impact on iTunes sales in France.  The analysis, by Danaher et al[1], found that iTunes singles sales were 23 per cent higher than they would have been in the absence of Hadopi.

In the US, a groundbreaking ISP cooperation deal was signed in 2011 and a graduated response programme will be implemented in 2012, with most major ISPs signing up to a “copyright alert system”. The move follows the closure of the illegal service LimeWire in 2010, which has helped cause a dramatic drop in levels of P2P piracy in the US market.

There was important progress elsewhere too. In New Zealand, a new graduated response law took effect in September 2011, with early indications of impact. In Europe, a string of court judgments has helped reduce copyright infringing activity on major sites like The Pirate Bay. In Belgium and Italy visits to the infringing sites dropped by 70-80 per cent in each case. In Spain a new law came into force to allow the blocking of illegal websites – a positive step, though disappointingly limited in its scope.

Stepped-up cooperation with online intermediaries

The recorded music industry is now working directly with advertisers, payment providers, search engines and website hosts to tackle digital piracy. A partnership struck in 2011 between IFPI, the City of London Police and payment providers MasterCard, Visa and PayPal has prevented more than 60 illegal websites from abusing payment services since it began in March 2011.

Better cooperation is being sought with search engines, which are a major channel for consumers to access music.  Research in several countries indicates that between a quarter and a half of people illegally downloading access infringing music via search engines. However, many of the top results provided by search engines are linked to unauthorised content or sites which regularly infringe copyright.

 [1] Danaher, B; Smith, MD; Telang, R; and Chan, S