Though the debate about dwindling music royalties rages on, us real music fans can all agree on one thing: something needs to be done. But according to a recent survey by music industry research firm MIDiA Research, most of us aren’t actually willing to do much.

As Hypebot reports, survey participants were asked the following question:

“Some singers and bands are concerned that streaming music services like YouTube, Spotify and Deezer pay too little money back to them compared to selling music. Using a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 equals ‘do not agree at all’ and 5 equals ‘agree entirely’ indicate how much you agree with this statement: This issue concerns me enough to reconsider my music buying habits.”

While you and I may sit back and proudly proclaim that we would ditch streaming entirely if it meant our favourite artists could feel a little more secure in their jobs, just 15 percent of participants said they agreed and only four percent indicated strong agreement.

To put that in perspective, Hypebot reports that 60 percent of consumers indicate that they consider music to be worth paying for.

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However, things begin to look a little brighter when you look at specific sections of music consumers, though not by much. For example, 30 percent of ‘Music Aficionados’, who are classified as those who spend and listen above the consumer average, agreed with the above statement.

But things get bleak once again when we consider the fact that these are some of the most passionate and engaged music consumers and that over 80 percent of them think music is worth paying for.

These are worrying statistics when you consider another MIDiA report, which indicated that streaming has had a detrimental impact on music sales — both physical and digital — in markets like the US.

According to the report, 30 percent of consumers are music streamers and a fifth of those consumers pay to stream, with the first wave of subscribers harvested directly from the most valuable download consumers.

Furthermore, 23 percent of music streamers used to buy more than one album a month but no longer do so. While once it was physical sales that had musicians sweating, now download sales are where they’re beginning to feel the pinch, with 45 percent of all music downloaders also music streamers.

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While MIDiA predicts streaming and subscriptions will grow by 238 percent on 2013 levels to reach $8 billion in 2019, only 24 percent of those consumers care enough about the plight of their favourite artists to consider changing their behaviour. Meanwhile, only 54 percent of all consumers specifically would not change their buying behaviour to benefit artists.

The numbers put musicians in a difficult and rather disheartening position. As Mark Mulligan from Music Industry Blog writes,”As bitter a pill as it may be to swallow, artists have to accept the fact that beyond their super fans, most consumers (and three quarters of streamers) simply don’t care whether streaming is making it harder for them to build and maintain a career.”

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