Report: It's the music, stupid

Research firm's poll of US music fans finds that most blame industry's woes on overpriced music, decline in quality, competition from other media.

The music industry has long blamed rampant illegal file-sharing as the primary cause of its declining revenues. And with digital music fans flocking to P2P services in record numbers last December, that argument continues to have supporting data.

But music fans themselves disagree, according to poll results released today.

The poll, conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs on behalf of the Associated Press and Rolling Stone, found that most music fans think that the declining quality of music and expensive CD prices are to blame for the industry's woes. Global music retail revenues fell about 2 percent in 2005, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, and have fallen about 20 percent globally since 1999.

Ipsos surveyed 1,000 music listeners last week, most of whom classified themselves as fans of rock (26 percent) or country (22 percent).

Of those surveyed, 74 percent said that CDs are too expensive, and 58 percent said music in general is "getting worse." Nearly two-thirds blamed the decline in sales on either competition from other media, a decline in new-music quality, or too-expensive CDs. One-third said the decline is due to illegal downloading or CD burning.

A whopping 92 percent said they never download free music using a P2P service, and 80 percent said they think free music downloading is stealing.

Although digital music sales skyrocketed in 2005 -- tracks sold jumped 147 percent to 352 million -- only 15 percent said they had purchased a song through a music download service like iTunes or Rhapsody.