Survey says: only DRM-free music is worth paying for

One of the largest surveys of music consumers to closely examine the question of Digital Rights Management (DRM) has an important two-part message for the music industry. The first is that DRM is definitely turning consumers off music sales, and charging them extra to get rid of it may be an uphill battle. The second message is that knowledge of DRM and its problems is spreading fast.

Entertainment Media Research, working with media law firm Olswang, conducted lengthy online surveys with 1,700 UK music consumers, selected from a pre-existing panel of more than 300,000 music consumers in the UK (PDF: 2007 Digital Music Survey). What makes this survey important is the fact that it was aimed squarely at the music-buying public, not the anti-RIAA crowd, not the techno-libertarians, and not our general readership. I've been told more than once that the views on DRM found at publications like Ars Technica are "not representative" of the general public. Perhaps this was once the case, but it can no longer be maintained generally. At least in the UK, the dirt on DRM is out, and it's spreading.

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First, the bird's eye view: 68 percent of those with opinions on the matter say that the only music worth purchasing is that which is DRM-free. Yet less than half (39 percent) are willing to pay a little extra for it, while 18 percent say that they'd rather save a little dough and keep the DRM if they had to chose between the two. In the middle is a mass of people with no opinion on the matter, because they're not sure what DRM is or don't know their preference. That will likely soon change.

Familiarity with DRM has grown significantly in the last year. In 2006, more than half of respondents had never heard of DRM, but that number has dropped 16 percentage points in 2007, to 37 percent. The number of people who claimed to have a good or exact knowledge of DRM nearly tripled in that same timeframe.

Of those who have some idea of what DRM is, their views are largely—but not entirely—negative. 61 percent said that DRM "invades the rights of the music consumer to hear their music on different platforms." 49 percent called it a "nuisance," and 39 percent expressed concerns that DRM could have privacy implications. Despite this, 63 percent agreed that DRM "is a good idea because it protects copyrighted music from illegal file-sharers." In other words, the idea of stopping illegal file-sharing via DRM doesn't bother these consumers much, but the effect the effort is having on their own purchases is not appreciated.

This view isn't surprising. Few are those who, in principle, believe that all information (and content) should be "free"; the mainstream viewpoint is still staunchly in the "artists should be compensated" camp. This appreciation for the music business does not surmount all other concerns, however.

Consumers aren't interested in a "nuisance" for the sake of stopping file-sharers, and of course those of us who play closer attention to the world of DRM know that DRM actually does not stop file-sharing at all. As this general truth spreads, so does dissatisfaction.

The takeaway from the survey is that DRM's bad reputation is spreading among general music consumers, and there is a growing aversion to purchasing music that comes with DRM. Despite this, the general understanding of the struggle the industry faces with piracy is still somewhat positive among those same consumers. Still, given that file sharing in the UK is at an all-time high, it would appear that the the music industry needs to remove the digital locks on its tunes, and fast.