New Media Age carries a story about a survey that found that 63% of young people (14 - 24 year olds) ‘fessed up to downloading music illegally.

Apart from almost certainly proving that the other 37% are lying, it does demonstrate pretty well that the music industry’s problems are ongoing and will almost certainly get worse. It’s amazing to me that in 2008, so many record execs are still in denial.

Last week, I met a fellow Mobile Marketing Association Board member for the first time, Gene Keenan of West Coast ad agency, Isobar. In a former life, Gene was (believe it or not) the personal chef to the iconic band The Grateful Dead. Which is a pretty cool thing to be able to just drop into the conversation.

The Dead actually provide a clue to the impasse faced today. For years they allowed people to freely record their live music and share it with their friends. As a result, their albums never sold in big quantities, but they still earned a very nice living indeed (with personal chef!) from their nearly constant touring. Thus the music became a sampling mechanism for the touring and merchandise and a way to recruit more and more fanatical fanboys aka Deadheads.

This isn’t a new idea and many performers have already cotttoned on to this - like Prince’s decision to give away his last album with a newspaper as a way of pocketing millions from his subsequent sell-out tour. But it amazes me that the record industry as a whole is still hoping that their ailing and aged golden goose will miraculously get better and starting laying those CD things again. It’s not going to happen, so accept it and move on, fellas.

Another interesting factoid is that the survey was commissioned by British Music Rights (BMR), an organisation dedicated to promoting and protecting creative people in the music industry. Their CEO, Feargal Sharkey, used to front The Undertones, who sang the near perfect (according to the best DJ ever, John Peel) Teenage Kicks. Interestingly, Feargal’s quote accompanying the survey tacitly accepts that he’d be illegally downloading today to get his teenage kicks:

“I was one of those people who went around the back of the bike shed with songs I had taped off the radio the night before…..”

I hope the record industry don’t come after him after all this time.