±±¾©Èü³µpk10

A study by industry analysts Music Ally found that overall levels of file-sharing were falling, particularly amongst UK teenagers - down from 42 per cent of 14 to 18 year olds filesharing once a month in December 2007, to just 26 per cent in January 2009.

The overall percentage of filesharing has gone down about a quarter, 22 per cent of those surveyed were regularly filesharing two years ago to just 14 per cent now.

This is despite the fact that the percentage of music fans who have ever fileshared has increased, rising from 28 per cent in December 2007 to 31 per cent in January 2009.

The move to streaming, including YouTube, MySpace and Spotify - is clear with the research, which shows that many teens (65 per cent) are streaming music regularly, or more than once a month.

If that wasn't music to record label's ears, the study also found that more UK music fans are more likely purchase legitimate singles (19%) through sites such as iTunes, rather than fileshare singles (17 per cent).

However, the percentage of fans sharing albums regularly (13 per cent) remains higher than those purchasing digital albums (10 per cent).

Research also shows the comparative volume of pirated tracks to legally purchased tracks has halved since their last survey just over 12 months ago.

In December 2007 the ratio of tracks obtained from file-sharing compared to tracks obtained as legal purchases on an ongoing basis was 4:1. In January 2009 the ratio had narrowed to just 2:1.

Tim Walker, cheif executive of The Leading Question, which co-sponsored the survey, said: Ultimately we believe that the best way to beat piracy is to create great new licensed services that are easier and more fun to use, whether that's an unlimited streaming service like Spotify or a service like the one recently announced by Virgin which aims to offer unlimited MP3 downloads as well as unlimited streams."