95% of people copying music, says new study; Undertones frontman comments

According to a new
Guardian report, 95% of people 18–24 are copying music in some form or another. Surprisingly, not all the copying is through file sharing networks with some copying CDs directly and others are (still) recording music from the radio.

The article talks to Feargal Sharkey of 70s–era punk act The Undertones who is now chief of the British Music Rights organization. Sharkey remarks:

For somebody who has spent 30 years in the music industry, you instinctively know this stuff is going on. But when you actually sit looking at your computer and see a number that says 95% of people are copying music at home, you suddenly go, 'Bloody hell',

Ultimately it has to get better ... At some point musicians and songwriters have to make enough money out of it otherwise they stop doing it, My concern is for the next generation of sexually frustrated, hormone–ridden 17–year–olds that are sitting in a bedroom about to possibly, and I hope, write something like Teenage Kicks