iPod Users Buy the Gear, Steal the Music

It looks as though stealing is the preferred method of music acquisition for most iPod owners, though they may couch it in gentler terms, like "sharing" with friends.

According to a recent study conducted in Britain by Jupiter Research,  only 20 percent of the music tracks on a given iPod will be from the iTunes shop. The study said that the free music on the iPod came predominantly from CDs someone else already owned or were acquired from file-sharing sites. In other words, friends are passing music between each other. The study went on to find that 83 percent of iPod owners do not buy digital music regularly, meaning single tracks at least once a month.

I did some calculations and figured out that 20 percent of my 40GB iPod holds about 2,000 songs. Filling my entire 40GB iPod with paid music would cost about $2,000. Filing my entire iPod with songs would cost $10,000. Ouch. That's not going to happen anytime soon. Not by me, and certainly not by most young music listeners.

At the price of a download, most people will do a reasonable amount of buying at iTunes and a little bit of sharing with friends and family (not unlike the way we share books). A friend comes over and says "Listen, you've got to hear the playlist I made. You like it? Keep a copy." It's hard to say no to a good friend with good music.

What's interesting about the Jupiter study is that it acknowledges the fact that there is no line in the sand between people who steal and people who buy their music. Based on Jupiter's report, we are one and the same.

What do you think we can we do to provide incentives to buy, not steal music? Here are my two ideas and one from Microsoft:

Robin: Offer student discounts. Ninety-nine cents for a download is a hardship on most students. A 50 percent discount card might entice them to take advantage.

Allow legitimate pass-alongs. For my 99 cents, let me share my music with three other people at no cost to them. Let them keep the song. In the long run, companies that do this often make money.

Microsoft's variation on the theme comes by way of Zune, their newly launched MP3 player. Built in to every Zune device is a wireless music sharing system that can beam tracks, playlists, and images to other Zune players nearby. A shared track can be listened to three times on the friend's machine or kept for three days before it disappears.

Do you think people will start buying more digital music? Would you like to see more "pay to share" programs? What do you think it will take to get people to buy digital music?