Visits to music piracy sites increased by more than 13% last year, according to a report. The bulk of those visits were to sites that allow users to download audio from YouTube URLs.
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This weekend, dozens of artists are preparing to descend on Los Angeles for the 66th annual Grammy Awards. Trevor Noah will tell jokes, musicians will pick up trophies — and somewhere on the internet, someone will be downloading their music for free.
There were more than 17 billion visits to music piracy sites worldwide last year, a staggering 13% increase from 2022, according to research firm Muso. After years of music piracy declining due to streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, the increase is somewhat surprising. According to Muso’s report, the increase shows “the urgent need for the industry to understand the changes that continue to drive consumers towards unauthorized channels.”
Music piracy has generally declined over the past seven years, largely because artists and labels have stopped offering exclusive album releases on specific music platforms, says Muso CEO Andy Chatterley. Back in 2016, albums like Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Frank Ocean’s Blonde would be released exclusively on Tidal or Apple Music and then “pirated” by users who didn’t use those services. Following a warning from Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge, denouncing the practice, exclusivity has declined. So has piracy. But now, it’s making a comeback.
Chatterley says there are many factors driving the resurgence, but he suggests that in some cases it’s a matter of people not being able to afford streaming music services. In other cases it’s a matter of high mobile data costs in some areas, leading people to download tracks to their phones over Wi-Fi rather than streaming or listening over a mobile data connection. He points to one particularly startling statistic in Muso’s findings: about 40% of the music piracy the company tracked was directed to sites that “steal” audio from YouTube videos and turn them into ready-to-download music files. That accounts for the bulk of piracy, according to Muso’s data — more than illegal streams, torrents or other forms of web downloads. “It’s a really big problem,” says Chatterley.
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When asked about Muso’s findings, YouTube spokesman Jack Malon noted that once the department is notified of stream-ripping tools, steps are taken to block infringing domains and develop techniques and methods to stop their use. YouTube also has a dedicated staff to send cease and desist notices to those behind such applications. “We invest significant resources in reporting and copyright management tools, and we work closely with other industry leaders to set the standard for how tech companies combat piracy,” Malon says. “We remain committed to continually strengthening these efforts.”
Muso wouldn’t reveal which mining sites it tracked for its latest report. Chatterley says that information is kept private to avoid promoting piracy services. The company also wouldn’t reveal how many downloads the mining sites were responsible for. To provide context, he offered torrent numbers for 2023.
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For example, Taylor Swift, the obvious breakout artist, is up for six Grammys this weekend and, despite not releasing a new album in 2023, has had six of the top 20 best-selling albums in the U.S. Her 1989 release (Taylor's Version), a re-recorded version of her 2014 pop powerhouse, sold an estimated 2.9 million copies—the biggest-selling album of any year in nearly a decade.
The same album was hacked and torrented more than 275,000 times. (The original 2014 version of the album was 430,077 times.)
Swift's other albums on that list also saw high numbers of torrents. For example, 2022's Midnights. That album was hacked and torrented 493,000 times last year.
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In fact, most of Swift’s most popular albums — Speak Now, Red, Folklore, Lover, Evermore — have been pirated between 400,000 and 700,000 times. In total, Swift’s albums were pirated just under 5 million times in 2023, which seems like a small amount when you consider that Swift sold 19 million copies in the U.S. alone during that period, according to data from Luminate. Then remember that torrents are the smallest part of music piracy worldwide. Only about 3% of visits to piracy sites worldwide lead to someone searching for a torrent.
And now that piracy seems to be on the rise – again. It’s been nearly 25 years since Napster changed the way people get music. In that time, dozens of options have emerged for how to buy and stream songs, but getting them online may never go away.
Source: wired
