• TorrentFreak, Thursday, September 29, 2011 12:41 PM

Is Spotify -- which just debuted stateside -- curing the world of music piracy? TorrentFreak thinks so. When the streaming music service launched in 2008, TorrentFreak branded it "an alternative to music piracy." Now, a new report looking into online music consumption habits shows that, since 2009, the number of people who pirate music has dropped by 25% in Sweden. "The sharp decrease coincides with a massive interest for the music streaming service Spotify," the news site notes. "One of the main reasons why people switch to legal services is the wider range of material they can find there."

The report is just the latest from the Swedish Music industry, which regularly polls the music consumption habits of thousands of Swedes between the age of 15 and 74. Over the last year alone, the research finds, piracy has dropped by 9% in Sweden. "The data further suggests that this downward trend is caused by the availability of improved legal services such as Spotify," according to TorrentFreak. But, will Spotify prove as affective at curbing piracy around the world as it has been in Sweden? For the United States, it's too early to tell.

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