Consumers expect music to be free on the web

Mark Mulligan, Jupiter MMXI

Napster was used by 4.7% of Europe's 60 million internet users during August 2001 - ahead of Audiogalaxy (3%) and Musiccity Morpheus (2.2%), the research found.

The two most popular "legitimate" music sites - which control their content rather than allow users to share files peer-to-peer - were further behind.

Lawsuits

Netbroadcaster has a reach of 1.7% and MP3.com has a reach of 1.5%.

The research, Jupiter says, suggests that since Napster's file-swapping service was suspended after lawsuits from the music majors, the file-swapping market has diminished and fragmented.

In February of this year 12 peer-to-peer services shared a combined audience reach of 16% in Europe - but by August 2001 17 sites had a combined reach of just 7.6%.

Napster's relative popularity is all the more remarkable since it now only offers a limited number of authorised downloads.

The service had more than 25 million users worldwide in February, when its peer-to-peer service was operational.

'Fragmented'

Jupiter analyst Mark Mulligan said: "The strength of Napster is testament to the popularity of sharing music over the Internet, but also to the fact that consumers expect music to be free on the web.

"The latest generation of Napster clones presents the record industry with the challenge of a fragmented, grey market but poses less of a threat than the original Napster phenomenon."