Sharing music via Bluetooth is illegal and many children are breaking the law without realising it.
A recent survey of 1,500 children aged between 8 to 13 found that around a third were happy to share music via Bluetooth. Sharing music in this way without the consent of copyright holders is illegal and is worrying the music industry.
With the advent of MP3 ringtones people are increasingly shunning polytones and preferring to load a full song from a CD or MP3 player onto a phone to use as a ringtone. This is perfectly legal as long as they purchased the track in the first place. It becomes illegal when the file is transferred to another user.
Robin Hart Intuitive Media, said:
Music sharing on the internet was identified by the industry as one of the biggest threats they’ve faced in recent years and this research shows that mobile has got the potential to exacerbate those problems.
The children are not aware they are doing anything illegal. This is a great opportunity for the industry. 26% of the children are buying things for their phone, costing at least £1 once a week. If the industry can offer cheap music downloads, make them easy to use and take advantage of Bluetooth spread, there are great opportunities.
The industry will waste time and money trying to stop this. There’s a viral thing happening here, and the music industry can take advantage of it.
The music industry is concerned at the findings but is unlikely to take any action. More than a million children under 10 has a mobile phone and as the basic models are starting to contain MP3 players and Bluetooth the problem will only increase.
Justin Pearse from New Media Age who commissioned the survey said:
The music capabilities of mobile phones have really exploded in the last few months so this type of illegal music sharing was only to be expected.
Nearly three quarters of kids are either already sharing music like this or want to be doing so.
Mobile phone song swapping is expected to become mainstream next year as the high end phones become more popular and people learn how to use the advanced features.
