The report from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre - which used Nielsen Netview data on the number of clicks to legal and illegal services that contain music – concluded that web piracy would not harm legitimate sales, as those who illegally obtain music would not have purchased the material if pirate websites were not available to them.

Negative impact

However, Music Week reports that the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said that the report is contradicted by other research that confirms the negative impact of piracy on the music industry.
In a statement, the IFPI said: ‘This competition for consumer eyeballs from piracy affects the ability of legal services such as Deezer and Spotify to grow and monetise their audience. It limits their ability to grow their traffic, increase trial of their service and the prospects of growing their premium subscriber base.
‘The fundamental problem of the music market place remains as true as ever: why pay for music when you can get it illegally free?’