Mobile Music Vs Piracy In Asia

The Music Matters event in Hong Kong raised some points about music in the Asian region, and analyst David Wolf has linked some points together for SeekingAlpha. First, industry group IFPI estimates that “piracy costs the music business $400 million annually around the region”. Second, PriceWaterhouse Coopers have a study that estimates Asia’s digital music industry at over $4.2 billion. Taking those figures as read the digital music industry in Asia is more than ten times the size of the losses to piracy, and therefore it has to be agreed that digital music is a good thing. Of that digital music figure, 85 percent was mobile music — and therefore a lot of it was undoubtadly ringtones. That shouldn’t be dismissed just because the labels don’t get a cut — royalties are still paid to the publishers of the music.

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