IFPI: Music piracy at 95%! (or is it 18%?)

In an article in December's New Statesman, Tim Blanning pointed out that musicians have always had it pretty rough. If current rockers think the P2P epidemic is bad, they might take consolation from the flagrant commercial piracy of the past.

Unscrupulous publishers often borrowed the identity of prestigious composers to add allure to slow-selling catalog items. In Paris, in 1789, the Bohemian composer Adalbert Gyrowetz went to a concert to hear a symphony advertised as being by Haydn—and found himself having to sit through one of his own compositions. Two years earlier, one of the more respectable publishing houses, Breitkopf & Härtel of Leipzig, advertised for sale 96 symphonies by Haydn, even though at that time he had written fewer than 80.

Now that's piracy!

Not that the comparison makes the international music industry feel better by comparison. In its new "Digital Music Report 2009," international industry trade group IFPI estimates that 40 billion files were "illegally file-shared" last year, "giving a piracy rate of around 95 percent."

95 percent? How could any industry make anything in such a climate, much less post a 25 percent worldwide gain in digital downloads and $3.7 billion in revenue? If true, it would appear that the opening of the Seven Seals has begun, the moon is in the process of turning to blood, and the pale horse is champing at the bit in his stall; the music apocalypse is indeed upon us.

Until one flips over a few pages. In the same report, we find a discussion of how IFPI's antipiracy team has "an excellent track record" and has "helped contain the level of Internet piracy." Clearly, "containing" piracy at 95 percent would be an abject failure, so IFPI must be referring to something else, as indeed it is.

According to a further study, only 18 percent of Internet users in Europe actually share files illegally. IFPI suggests that this number has remained constant even as broadband penetration has soared from 5 to 42 percent over the last few years, but it's hard to see what this could mean. With the rate of file-swapping remaining steady, IFPI's own numbers actually suggest that file-swapping has soared.

Assuming that all these numbers are in any way accurate, they suggest that less than one-fifth of Europeans share files—though when they do, they share a lot.

What's the answer? Graduated response, of course, and IFPI couldn't be more pleased that these models are coming to France, the UK, the US, and New Zealand in the near future.

The report has good news for the industry, too, though. Music "consumption" is at an all-time high in the US, sales are increasing on digital downloads as DRM is removed, and licensing music for video games can be terrifically profitable. In fact, Universal reports that game licensing now brings in more money than licensing music for use in films.