Are illegal music downloads easing?

Brad Stone of The New York Times found some evidence that suggests just that. In an article posted Saturday, he said that people are finally starting to take notice of some subscription movie- and music-streaming sites because — get this — they just work better.

Huh. Who knew?

Yep, apparently sites like Imeem, Netflix, MySpace Music, Spotify and more are attracting people who might otherwise have used file-sharing software to download programs and songs illegally. Some of them are free, with advertising used to support them. Others are subscription-based.

Stone cites two recent studies in his article, from British researchers The Leading Question and MusicAlly, both of which said that teens 14-18 used  illegal file-sharing software such as BitTorrent considerably less than they did two years ago — going from 42 percent to 26 percent over a period from December 2007 to January 2009. That was in the United Kingdom. In the United States, however, a similar phenomenon has been taking place, according to the NPD Group. In 2008, kids 13 to 17 years old downloaded 6 percent fewer illegal tracks than they had in the previous year.

But site visitors are up, Stone said, at sites like MySpace Music and YouTube. Which bodes well for the industry, even if the revenue from these sites can’t make up for the money lost by not selling plastic discs to people. Ultimately, music publishers may push for subscription models where people sign up for a recurring account.

Will it work? It’s hard to say. After all, now that Pandora has reached an agreement on music royalty fees by charging 99 cents once users listen to the service more than 40 hours per month, I don’t know that people are switching to the Pandora One account. It comes with some additional features, but at $36 per year, that’s more than three times what you’d pay if you go over your 40-hour listening limit. We’ll have to see if people make the leap and say, “Hmm, $36 per year really is worth it to me.”

That’s exactly what the terrestrial radio stations are counting on.

For more on file sharing, streaming music and more, take a look at these articles:

How Streaming Video and Audio Work
How BitTorrent Works
How Pandora Radio Works