• Ars Technica, Tuesday, April 21, 2009 12 PM

Those who download music illegally over peer-to-peer file sharing networks also happen to be the biggest consumers of legal music, according to a new study by the BI Norwegian School of Management. The study examined the music downloading habits of more than 1,900 Internet users over the age of 15 and found that those who download illegal music are significantly more likely to purchase music than the average user.

The BI study found that those between 15 and 20 are more likely to buy paid downloads than CDs, although most still purchased at least one CD in the last six months. The most surprising finding was that those who said they download illegal music for "free" bought 10 times as much legal music on services like iTunes and Amazon MP3 than those who never download music illegally.

Even so, record label EMI wasn't convinced. One company exec said the results make it seem like free downloads stimulate pay downloads, but there's no way to know for sure. "There is one thing we are not going away, and it is the consumption of music increases, while revenue declines. It can not be explained in any way other than that the illegal downloading is over the legal sale of music," the EMI exec said.

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