Document T058
This study is based on the responses of 12,197 Canadians age 12 or over to a telephone survey conducted from July 2001 to June 2002. The conclusions of this study were as follows.
Private copying of pre-recorded music is a major phenomenon that became more common in 2001-2002 compared with 1998 and 1999-2000.
- More than one-quarter (28%) of all Canadians age 12 or over made at least one private copy in 2001-2002; this was slightly fewer than in 1999-2000, when 31% of the members of this group made at least one private copy.
- On average, in 2001-2002, every Canadian engaged in 2.7 pre-recorded music copying sessions, for a total of 65 million sessions over this twelve-month period.
- The number of tracks of pre-recorded music copied in Canada in 2001-2002 was 1.072 billion, or 88% higher than in 1999-2000.
- Two-thirds (67%) of these tracks were copied as part of custom compilations from multiple albums and 17% as part of copies of entire albums; 16% were copied in sessions where selected tracks from only one album were recorded.
- Slightly over one-third (37%) of all tracks copied came from albums owned by the person making the copy; in 1999-2000, the figure was one-half.
- In total, people age 26 or older copied slightly more tracks than people age 12 to 25. On average, however, teenagers and young adults still made more private copies per year (134 tracks and 130 tracks per individual, respectively).
- Men copied twice as much music as women in 2001-2002, just as in 1998 and in 1999-2000.
Some profound changes in copying patterns that began in 1999-2000 were completed in 2001-2002: private copying has now gone digital.
- Between 1999-2000 and 2001-2002, the proportion of households with CD-ROM writers doubled, to 12% from 6%.
- The total volume of private copying nearly doubled in 2001-2002 compared with 1999-2000, returning to a level slightly higher than in 1998, with over 1 billion tracks copied per year.
- In 2001-2002, only 10% of all tracks were copied from CDs to audio cassettes; this was three times less than in 1999-2000 and six times less than in 1998.
- In 2001-2002, 76% of all tracks were copied onto blank CDs; the figure was 41% in 1999-2000 and 6% in 1998.
- The Internet, which provided only 2% of the tracks copied in 1998 and 19% of those copied in 1999-2000, became the main source for private copying of music in 2001-2002, accounting for 48% of all tracks.
- The average number of tracks copied per copying event rose from 12.3 in 1999-2000 to 14.9 in 2001-2002.
- On average, people who use non-rewritable CDs copy three times more tracks per year than people who use audio cassettes (259 versus 76).
- This difference in intensity of private copying behaviour between people who use a digital copying medium (CD) and people who use an analog medium (audio cassette) has been growing steadily from year to year. It was 70% in 1998, 173% in 2000-2001, and 241% in 2001-2002.
- In 2001-2002, sales of blank CDs for personal use greatly exceeded sales of blank audio cassettes; for every audio cassette sold for personal use, 4 blank CDs were sold.
- Purchases of blank CDs exceeded purchases of blank audio cassettes in all age groups.
The main purpose for which individuals use blank audio cassettes and blank CDs is to copy pre-recorded music.
- As measured by most recent copying event, private copying of pre-recorded music accounts for 75% of all recording on blank audio cassettes, 66% on non-rewritable CDs and 49% on rewritable CDs. The proportion for memory cards and DVDs is 36% each.
- The spoilage percentage for non-rewritable CDs in private copying sessions was 5% in 2001-2002, down from 12% in 1999-2000.
- Close to two-thirds of all copies are made on previously unused, blank media.
- Overall, 14% of the space on recording media is left unused.
- More than 40% of the people who have left free space on an audio cassette or a rewritable CD plan to use this space some time in future.
The Internet is the primary source for private copying, but only a portion of the tracks copied from the Internet are copied to media subject to the private copying tariff.
- About half (48%) of the tracks privately copied to media that are subject to the tariff come from the Internet.
- In 2001-2002, about one out of five Canadians age 12 or over (19%) had downloaded music from the Internet in the preceding twelve months.
- Over one-quarter (29%) of the people who have a computer at home keep some tracks of music on their hard drives.
- On average, people's hard drives contain 146 tracks of music, of which 83 come from the Internet.
- On average, people who had downloaded tracks from the Internet during the preceding month had downloaded 13 tracks during this period; this represents a total of 431 million tracks downloaded from the Internet in one year.
- Most of these tracks (93%) came from sites where individuals exchange music.
- Only a very small proportion of the tracks downloaded from the Internet were paid for: 3% came from commercial sites, and 6% of the people for whom the Internet was the source the last time that they copied tracks to a removable medium had paid for any of these tracks.
METHODOLOGY
This study is based on a series of monthly surveys conducted from July 2001 to June 2002; some additional data were gathered from April to June 2001. Each month, this survey interviewed some 1,000 Canadians age 12 or over who constituted a representative sample of all Canadians in this age group. During the primary period of the study (July 2001 to June 2002), 12,197 interviews were conducted.
The estimates produced from the survey data have been adjusted for gender, age, region of residence, and mother tongue so as to fit the 1996 Census data, which were the most recent data available for the required combinations of variables at the time that this report was prepared.
The survey questionnaire was built around four research objectives and composed of ten sections. The number of questions varied with the characteristics of each respondent. The survey used the same questions from one month to the next, except for a few questions that were added at various times. The questionnaire used in the present study was derived largely from the one used for our second study on private copying, in 2000, but was nevertheless pre-tested in April 2001.
The sample of telephone numbers was created with a specialized software application that provides not only numbers listed in the telephone directory but unlisted numbers as well. Within each household, one person was selected in a strictly random fashion, on the basis of his or her last birthday. No substitutions were allowed.
The data were gathered from July 1, 2001 to June 14, 2002. The refusal rate and the response rate, calculated according to standard industry methods, were 24% and 60%, respectively.
The highest margin of sampling error for proportion estimates for the entire sample was ± 1.0 percentage point. The margins of error for the totals and means were larger, but still low compared with studies that use smaller samples. For example, the margin of error for the estimated mean number of tracks copied per person over a month is ± 11%. The margins of sampling error are larger for sub-groups within the sample.
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