Big Music in ‘heaps of trouble’
p2pnet.net News:- “BitTorrent is going legitimate, and LimeWire is looking to go legitimate.”
So says Tim Mitchell, vp of marketing and business development with the Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA), quoted by Red Herring.
“Clearly the labels understand the power of being able to reach customers, we`re just in flux right now and people are trying to figure out how to make stuff work,” he says.
BitTorrent has been swallowed whole by Hollywood’s MPAA, and LimeWire is being sued by the Big Four’s RIAA in a case that’s part of an overall scheme to, “to destroy any online music distribution service they did not own or control, or force such services to do business with them on exclusive and/or other anticompetitive terms so as to limit and ultimately control the distribution and pricing of digital music, all to the detriment of consumers,” says LimeWire.
But, “Despite being in the middle of a legal battle with the record industry, P2P service LimeWire is in talks with record labels and working on a ‘conversion plans for users,’ said LimeWire consultant Laura Tunberg with consulting firm We Get It.
“A lot of users want a legitimate product,” she’s quoted as saying. “We believe a certain percentage of our user base will be converted, and that this is a viable business model.”
Meanwhile, are they finally beginning to get it?
Some analysts, “think the record industry should stop suing and instead look for ways to benefit from the technology,” the story goes on.
Stop suing and start wooing?
So it seems because, “The major label recording business is in heaps of trouble,” says Red Herring. They’ve spent [wasted?] time, “building a strategy to knock down P2P that might have been better spent on some other initiatives” and, “they`re certainly showing no signs of moving off it, the story has Joe Fleischer, ceo of p2p research firm Big Champagne saying.
But, “the P2P industry is gradually adjusting to make amends,” the story continues. “These days, everyone in P2P seems to want to go legit.”
Actually, it’s more a case of properly constituted commercial p2p companies being sued out of existence by the Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Vivendi Universal (France), the all-powerful members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel.
However, the Red Herring piece describes it as a “change of heart,” saying the “revenue-sharing models mean P2P companies could benefit”.
But, “It`s a risky bet,” the story has says Joe Laszlo, senior broadband analyst at Jupiter Research, stating. “They have solved a problem, which is moving large files. However, no one has come up with a business model that holds the promise of turning a dollar.”
Meanwhile, “It`s a game of catching cockroaches,” says Mark Ishikawa, online scalp hunter. “You shut them down in one country and they show up in another country.”
Are you paying attention, cockroaches?
Also See:
Red Herring – Can P2P Really Go Legit?, November 11, 2006
the detriment of consumers – LimeWire versus the RIAA, September 26, 2006
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