Research: 3/4 of Students Prefer Downloading Music To Streaming

A recent survey of 10,000 university students by the University of Reading, found that 75% of students download music, rather than buy in stores or pay for on music-streaming sites. Despite the recent popularity of music-streaming sites such as Spotify, 75 percent said they wouldn't pay for a music-streaming service but would rather use sites such as iTunes to download and keep tracks on hard drives or MP3 players.

The industry is in for a shake up as more students and teenagers are looking at pricing and sites that offer songs without copy-protection technology known as digital-rights management, or DRM. This prevents customers from being able to copy music or play the MP3 music on other devices other than Apples iPods or using iTunes player.

The industry is taking note of the growing demand for cheaper downloads; one such site that has already lowered prices considerably is TunesPro.com. Launched 3 months ago, the company has reduced the cost of its tracks already, to attract the younger customers.