Legal music sites pass 100 mark : 28:5:2004

Pro-music website marks first year with new directory of legal online music services; educational site for online music hits 25,000 visits per month.

The music industry’s campaign to promote legitimate online music services has stepped up a gear with the publication of a new directory of digital music services on the one-year old www.pro-music.org website.

The directory offers a comprehensive selection of legitimate online services across the world where consumers can access and download music.  It lists over 100 sites covering virtually every region of the world, the numbers of available tracks, type of repertoire and links to the services.  It will be regularly updated as new services come online, and as more repertoire is added.

In the year since the launch of pro-music, there has been a sharp rise in the number of digital music services being offered.  When the site was launched around 20 sites were listed in the USA and Europe, with an average catalogue of 200,000 songs.  Today, the worldwide tracker lists over 100 sites, including the latest country launch in the UK from Napster. The average offering on the major services is more than 500,000 unique tracks.

www.pro-music.org was launched in May 2003 supported by an international alliance of musicians, performers, artists, major and independent record companies, and music retailers.  The initiative was set up to promote legitimate digital music services and confront the myths surrounding online music piracy. 

Jay Berman, Chairman and CEO of IFPI said:

“Pro-music has achieved over twelve months what its founding alliance partners intended it to be - a successful international educational campaign about online music.  Pro-music is supported across the music sector, has attracted tens of thousands of visitors and rolled out in national versions in French, German and Italian. 

The site spells out in clear and simple terms the legal and copyright concerns around online music.  It explains the fight against internet piracy. And, above all, it has tracked the surge of new legitimate services that have come on stream in the last year.  Pro-music has a vital role to play in improving awareness in this area, and there seems no doubt that the second year of the campaign will be even more important than the first.”

International site statistics

Visits to the site are currently in the region of around 25,000 a month.  This has remained relatively steady and compares to around 16,000 hits a month in the first six months of operation. 

In April 2004, the highest number of visits was from the USA, followed by the UK, France, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Mexico, Sweden, Australia, Austria and Brazil.  Visitors from 100 countries around the world visited the site in April.

Pro-music.org also sees around 1,000 downloads a month including pdfs for uninstalling or turning off the ‘upload’ function of P2P software programmes, and of IFPI’s Copyright and Security Guides for businesses, governments and academia.

For further information please contact: Fiona Harley or Adrian Strain at IFPI Communications, tel: +44 (0)20 7878 7900

www.pro-music.org – ‘everything you need to know about music online’

Further information

Related articles

28.05.04 | Legal sites pass 100 mark

30.03.04 | IFPI legal action, BPI to monitor effects

25.03.04 | BPI send anti-piracy message to filesharers

25.03.04 | Legal download services set to take off in UK

25.03.04 | Research shows impact of illegal file-sharing

25.03.04 | UK record industry warns illegal filesharers

09.02.04 | Legal downloads begin to make their mark