New headache for Music Industry.

“I’ll take Madonna’s ‘Jump,’ you can have Tiesto Ft. Maxi Jazz’s ‘Dance4life.'”

In a study of nearly 1,500 6-to-13-year-olds in Britain, released jointly by the newsweekly New Media Age and Intuitive Media, children admitted that they use the Bluetooth wireless feature of their phones to swap music — without the consent of copyright holders.

Well, duh!

Mobile phone usage — and ownership — is starting younger. The survey found that 72% of the 6-to-13-year-olds questioned owned their own mobile phones, and 53% of 8-to-9-year-olds did too.

Nearly a third of those children, 29%, said they share music with their friends rather than paying for it — and almost half (44%) of those who did not currently share music on their mobiles said they wanted to, so the problem is certain to grow.

Only 27% indicated that they had no desire to share music on their phones.

Of the 80% of the 6-to-13-year-olds who listened to music on the go, 30% use their mobile phones as the main device for doing so.

“Music sharing on the Internet was identified by the industry as one of the biggest threats they’ve faced in recent years and this research shows that mobile has got the potential to exacerbate those problems,” Robin of Intuitive Media told the BBC.

Of course, in the children’s defense, at their age they do not fully realize that what they are doing is considered illegal, and the industry must exercise caution in criminalizing their conduct. The public outcry could be considerable. Still, habits are being formed.

As the music capabilities of mobile phones expand, and the age of mobile phone users continues to drop, the mobile music-swapping phenomenon could explode during 2007.

But as Jim Davis of Sony BMG told New Media Age, “It depends whether you view this in a half full or half empty glass perspective. The results demonstrate a strong appetite for music and, as content owners, we need to provide access to music so that fans can enjoy it.”

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