Users reluctant to pay for online tunes

Research from analyst GartnerG2 has found that paying for and downloading music over the internet won't be catching on any time soon.

Although the recording industry is constantly developing new services to sell music over the web while protecting copyright, users have not tuned into the concept. And they aren't likely to in the near future, according to GartnerG2.

A survey of 4000 adults with web access found that nearly 50 per cent listened to CDs on their PC but only 25 per cent downloaded music.

The research also found that only a tiny six per cent of these adults had actually purchased downloadable music over the internet.

The analyst warned that the percentage of users buying music online is not likely to increase in proportion to new web-based services being developed by the recording industry.

GartnerG2 cited inflexible copyright protection systems as the biggest hurdle for online music.

The report goes against the music industry's expectations that paid-for music downloads will rocket in the coming months. But GartnerG2 reckons that unless the big five music labels - Universal, Sony, AOL Time Warner, EMI and Bertelsmann - agree on a common distribution platform, online music will go unheard.

With companies investigating different methods of copyright protection, the analyst reckons that users will become alienated.

"Any digital rights management solution deployed should work with all music software and hardware. In order for this to happen, the big five labels need to work together, and that doesn't look hopeful before 2002," said the report.