Free illegal music-downloading, or “acquiring,” as youth like to call it, is still a huge trend among college students today. With the vast online networks at today’s colleges, students stay constantly connected to each other’s music libraries. In our 2007 College Survey (to be released in its entirety next month), 98% of survey respondents admitted to illegal downloading.

Many students are satisfied with the “Shares” function on their iTunes, which enables to them to instantly listen to someone else’s iTunes Library; but for others who want to actually download (legally) other students’ music for themselves, there are programs like MyTunes. While they all know that it’s better to support an artist by actually buying their CD, the low budget of college students generally discourages legitimate purchases of music. Other programs that are commonly being used for illegal downloading include Limewire and Bittorrent.

With Steve Jobs’ recent announcement that the iTunes Music Store will be selling “premium” songs from EMI’s catalogue without copy protection – allowing users limitless sharing of a music file after the initial download - we may be heading in a different direction. Are consumers finally getting the last laugh, or is this just the next frontier in the downloading war?

While illegal downloading is popular among teens, programs like iTunes have made it easier to buy songs at a more affordable price than simply purchasing the album from a record store. Furthermore, teens aren’t just stopping at buying music—they are also paying for and downloading entire seasons of television shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Lost.

Illegal downloading is used the most frequently when it comes to checking out music from new, emerging artists. Myspace.com is a quickly-expanding source of new music, allowing artists to post their own songs, biographies, and tour dates on their personal MySpace Music page. What really attracts fans is the fact that they can comment on artist pages, which establishes a direct line of communication between the fan and the artist. Also, Pitchforkmedia.com is another popular source for indie music, and the staff puts on an annual music festival every summer.

What’s even more interesting, however, is the growing number of consumers posting their own web pages with streams of their own music. With American Idol quickly turning everyday Americans into A&R execs, consumers are taking more control over their music consumption.

Tina Wells is the CEO of Buzz Marketing Group
and can be reached via email at tina@buzzmg.com
or via phone at 856.346.3456.