Study: Illegal downloads steady in U.K.

The BBC reported Friday a third of the more than 3,000 respondents in the survey admitted to illegally downloading music. Survey results indicate the use of Web-based illegal download methods increased during the last six months.

During that same time period, results of the survey of people ages 16-54 indicate use of file-sharing applications like BitTorrent remained steady.

The BBC said BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor deemed the results "disappointing."

"There are now more than 35 legal digital music services in the U.K., offering music fans a great choice of ways to get music legally," he said.

"It's disappointing that levels of illegal peer-to-peer use remain high despite this and the publicity surrounding imminent measures to address the problem."

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.