SURVEY: 86% of Swedes Would Pay for Legal P2P

Swedish Performing Rights Society plays up the results, but admits was compiled using data obtained from ad respondents and not per a statistcial group model.

The Swedish Performing Rights Society (STIM) has released a study titled “Pirates, File-Sharers and Music Users”(.pdf) that claims 86.2% of online music fans would pay a monthly subscription fee in exchange for legalized file-sharing.

Only 5.2% said they wouldn’t be interested.

“The backing of music users is vital if our proposed file sharing subscription is to become a reality,” says Susanne Bodin, Head of Communications for STIM. “The result of the survey clearly shows that a large majority of file sharers respect the music creators and their right to fair economic compensation.”

Those expressing the greatest interest of all were users who already had a large digital music collection and the third of respondents who have paid for less than 10% of the music in their collection.

When asked how much they would be willing to pay, 51.8% said between SEK 50 ($5.84 USD) and SEK 150 ($17.53) per month. Some 18.8% would consider paying between SEK 150 and SEK 300 ($35.08), and 21.7% would pay less than SEK 50 ($5.84) per month.

However, the study has some major flaws, the main being that there was no control process to determine the study group. The only requirements were a written account of why music is important and a valid e-mail address.

“Because no controls were applied to the selection, it cannot with certainty be regarded as representative of the entire group of music users on the Internet,” reads the study.

Buried in the back of the 30 page results we find out that the study group is even more flawed than I first thought.

“The participants who completed the test are not representative of the public; they were students on a music industry course entitled Music Management,” it reads. “As a result, the participants were probably more interested in music that the average person, and this is likely to be reflected in the results.”

So much for taking its conclusions seriously.

Now many file-sharers, myslef included, would surely be interested in paying a few bucks a month if it meant legalized P2P, but the plan has its drawbacks. What’s to say other copyright holder groups like the movie or gaming industry don’t come along and demand their own monthly subscription fee?

jared@zeropaid.com

Related

1. STUDY: 2.8 Million Swedes are File-Sharers
2. Canada Survey: File-Sharing the ‘New Normal’
3. Survey shows most musicians oppose RIAA’s lawsuits
4. UK SURVEY: 54% of File-Sharers Buy Music on iTunes
5. Virgin Scraps Plans for Legal P2P