Music is still one of the domains where piracy is has not even been reduced to acceptable levels, according to a new research from Entertainment Media Research and law firm Olswang. One of the important factors that are changing the way people listen and access music is the emergence of social networks, which are helping music become more “democratic and utilitarian”. Social network were also found to have “profound impact upon the discovery and purchase of music, with far-reaching implications for the music business.” Entertainment Media Research and law firm Olswang have been conducting for at least three years an independent survey called Digital Music Survey on 1,700 UK consumers. The research indicates massive increases over the last 12 months in usage of sites containing music such as YouTube (up 310% to 53%) and MySpace (up 57% to 55%). Amongst teenagers the incidence is huge – 77% have used MySpace and 69%, YouTube. For users of these social networks, music is playing an increasingly important role. For example, 39% of social network users have embedded music in their personal profiles (65% of teenagers). Approximately 70% do so to show off their taste and half do so to reflect their personality. What’s more, it seems to work as almost 60% agreed that they could tell a lot about a person from the music in their profile. Discovering new music has also been found to be a reason for which people sift through online profiles posted on different social networks. More than a half of the subjects (52%) have confessed that they search profiles for new artists and new music genres, while two-thirds of all users regularly or occasionally discover music that they love on their preferred social network site. The incidence is higher still on MySpace (75%), Bebo (72%) and YouTube (66%). 43% of those questioned admitted to downloading music for free from BitTorrent and other services such as Limewire. This compares to 36% in 2006 and 40% back in 2005. Of all the men asked, 47% admitted to unauthorized downloading - up from 43% in 2006 - and from the women, 40% admitted doing the same - up from just 29% in 2006. 46% of respondents agreed with the statement “I wish it was easier to purchase music that I find on these sites.” Russell Hart, Chief Executive of Entertainment Media Research commented, ”Social networks are fundamentally changing the way we discover, purchase and use music. The dynamics of democratisation, word of mouth recommendation and instant purchase challenge the established order and offer huge opportunities to forward-thinking businesses.” John Enser, partner and head of music at Olswang, says, "The music industry needs to embrace new opportunities being generated by the increasing popularity of music on social networking sites. Surfing these sites and discovering new music is widespread with the latest generation of online consumers but the process of actually purchasing the music needs to be made easier to encourage sales and develop this new market."