Buying VS DownloadingWhich factors affect a person’s

tendency to buy or download music for free?

An investigation conducted by Angshu Madge and Inji Fyfe1%

Introduction

One of the most popular forms of media, music is becoming increasingly available to secondary school students.

Whether by purchasing the music through an authorised service, or by downloading the music for free (commonly known as ‘pirating’), such students can easily acquire their favourite songs.

But which factors determine a secondary school student’s tendency to buy or download such music?

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Aim

To determine whether age/year level, gender, the preferred genre of music or job status affects the tendency of a person to download music for free or pay for music.

20%

Hypotheses

Year Level• People in lower years of high school will be more likely to buy music as they value

the artist and feel the need to do the morally ‘right’ thing. Children in lower years are also more likely to have parents providing pocket money or buying music for them; and so they don’t see the money as their own.

• People in the middle years of high school will be more likely to download as tastes will change often as well as the fact that the money first earned from jobs will seem more precious to them, making them less likely to splurge on luxury items such as music.

• Those students in higher years will generally have a well established source of income, and will so see money as something to use on luxuries like music.

30%

Hypotheses (cont.)

Gender• Males will be more likely to download music because they are

generally more impulsive and less considerate of the repercussions of their actions.

Job Status• Those who are unemployed will be more likely to download music

for free, due to the fact that they will generally have less money to spend on luxury items.

Genre• Those who prefer to listen to modern genres such as rap, dance and

pop, would have a higher tendency to download music; while those who listen to longer lasting music such as classical, rock and R&B, would tend to buy more.

42%

Method

A survey was distributed to sixty secondary school students. Such students included:

• 10 males within the year 7-8 group• 10 females within the year 7-8 group• 10 males within the year 9-10 group• 10 females within the year 9-10 group• 10 males within the year 11-12 group• 10 females within the year 11-12 group

A copy of the survey is pictured below

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Data (year level)

7 to 8 9 to 10 11 to 12Buy 4 7 4Download 16 13 16

7 to 8

9 to 10

11 to 12

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Buy VS Download - Year Level

Buy Download

Year

Level

48%

Data (Gender)

Male FemaleBuy 6 9Download 24 21

51%

Male

Female

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Buy VS Download - Gender

Buy Download

Gender

Data (Job Status)

Employed Unemployed

Buy 5 10

Download 13 32

Employed

Unemployed

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Buy VS Download - Job Status

Buy Download

Job S

tatu

s

60%

Data (Preferred Genre)

pop

rock

dance

rap

classical

R&B

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Buy VS Download - Preferred Genre

Buy Download

Pre

ferr

ed

Ge

nre

Pop Rock Dance Rap Classical R&BBuy 6 3 1 3 0 2Download 20 7 3 11 1 3

64%

Discussion

Contrary to our hypothesis, years nine and ten were the peak age for buying with 35% of students choosing to buy music, while years 7 to 8, and 11 to 12 both had 20% of people buying.

In line with our hypothesis, females were more predisposed to buying (30%), while significantly more males preferred to download (20%).

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Discussion (cont.)

Job status was another factor that largely contributed to a person’s tendency to buy or download. As expected, an employed person was more likely to buy with 38.46% of people buying, and of those who were unemployed, 31.25% bought – significantly less than the unemployed test subjects.

A person’s preferred genre had very little effect on their tendency to buy or download. Note that though ‘classical’ shows 100% downloading, only one of the 60 test subjects chose this genre and so the result is unreliable.

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Conclusion

From the data collected, it is apparent that the majority of secondary school students will download music for free instead of buying music. It is however, evident that there are many factors which affect a person’s tendency to buy or download music.

The age of a person, their job status, gender and preferred genre of music are all aspects that can alter a person’s tendency to buy or download.

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