Music piracy is down but still very much in play

Apple's biggest rival when it launches its $10-a-month streaming music service might not be Spotify or Tidal, but piracy. About a fifth of Internet users around the world continue to regularly access sites offering copyright infringing music, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. In the US alone, 20 million people still get music through peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, according to research firm MusicWatch. And newer methods have emerged, such as mobile apps and software that rips audio from YouTube. Comparatively, just 7.7 million Americans paid for a music subscription service in 2014. "It's a tremendous problem," said analyst Russ Crupnick of MusicWatch. "The good news is some of the very traditional ways of stealing are down pretty dramatically."

The rise of convenient, licensed streaming has helped cut US file-sharing rates in half in the last decade. Anti-piracy efforts of the Recording Industry Association of America -- representing Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and others -- have also contributed to the drop off. But the music industry is still trying to recover from piracy's heyday. In 2014, total music industry revenue was about $15 billion worldwide, well below the 1999 peak of $38 billion.