These days, when an artist releases new music, getting it for free is just a click away. Within the music industry, this has been perceived as a scary prospect and major problem to tackle; however, recent studies from The London School of Economics and Political Science prove otherwise.

The graph below shows the results form a study done by The London School of Economics and Political Science. It proves that contrary to popular belief, the music industry is doing just fine. In fact, 2012 was the first year in over a decade that sales around the world had an upward trend[1].

So, if free music downloads are becoming more readily available each year, then why is the state of the music industry actually improving? The study showed that the less people tend to spend towards buying records, the more they put into other areas such as live entertainment and merchandise. With people using the Internet for streaming, music is actually able to reach more people than it would if people had to pay. In fact, the Internet has proven to be an extremely useful marketing tool.

U.K. singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran recently stated during a radio interview that he was currently the most illegally downloaded artist. Although an artist may find this troubling, Ed was instead thrilled, saying that the more people’s iPod’s he could be on the better (given he was still making a living).

Despite thoughts that piracy and online streaming are severely detrimental to the music industry, they have actually become a great way to promote artists and gain fans, as well as allow consumers to place more cash in other areas of the industry.