95% of youngsters are illegally copying music

“For somebody who has spent 30 years in the music industry, you instinctively know this stuff is going on. But when you actually sit looking at your computer and see a number that says 95% of people are copying music at home, you suddenly go, ‘Bloody hell.’”

Feargal Sharkey, former Undertones front man and British Music Rights chief

The Guardian reports this morning that more than half of young people in the U.K. copy the songs on their hard drives to friends and even more swap CD copies.

“Research carried out by the University of Hertfordshire suggests that for 18-24-year-olds, home copying remains more popular than file sharing. Two-thirds of people it surveyed copy five CDs a month from friends… Overall, 95% of the 1,158 people surveyed had engaged in some form of copying.”

Full story here.