Suing file sharers doesn’t work: RIAA
p2pnet news | Freedom:- “Raising awareness of the morality of free downloading doesn’t work, nor does litigation.”
So stated David Hughes, senior VP of the RIAA’s technology division, speaking at The Evolution of Peer-to-Peer Music: From Enemy to Business Partner during Canadian Music Week.
But, “If you make the hassle factor high enough, people will pay,” he says.
Hassle factor? Like trying to sue your own customers, including young children, into becoming corporate consumers, the favourite music industry marketing practice in the US?
In Canada, it’s not illegal to download music for your own use and pleasure, although Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG and their RIAA Canadian clone, the seriously embarrassed CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America), have spent millions of dollars on lobbying efforts to have Canada’s copyright laws altered.
But the consensus at the panel discussion, “was not dissimilar to a controversial idea advanced just last month by the Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC),” says the Toronto Star, to wit:
“[The] SAC has proposed making it legal to share music on peer-to-peer networks in exchange for a monthly fee of $5 going to royalties for music’s creators.”
But Hughes, underscoring what’s increasingly becoming the corporate music industry line —- that ISPs everywhere should become copyright cops acting for, and on behalf of, the Big 4 —- suggests, “It’s the ISPs who have to crack down, and they will, once they realize they can make money from the people who use the most bandwidth.
“The shift will be to subscription services costing (high bandwidth users) a fee, as much as $12 a month,” he predicted.
But, the story goes on, “making it more difficult and expensive for ordinary subscribers to acquire bandwidth isn’t a good strategy,” said Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, which specialises in measuring online digital music activity. “It doesn’t serve the hunger. This is a beast and you have to feed it.”
Washington-based Gary Greenstein, a “specialist in the future financing of digital media space,” also said he doesn’t believe customers will go for extra fees.
“Only a fraction of music consumers in the U.S. use existing (legal) subscription services such as Napster and Rhapsody (or Puretracks in Canada),” the Toronto Star has him saying, belying Big 4 statements that the corporate onoline music industry is “thriving”.
“They aren’t going to buy into an ISP-based subscription … they’ll go around it, find other ways to get their music for nothing. In the meantime, they’re looking at an empty screen waiting for searches and downloads – that’s a huge and untapped opportunity for advertisers.”
Trying to stop free music-file exchanges in Canada where there’s no legal impediment, “is a waste of time and effort, most of the panelists agreed,” says the story, adding:
“People don’t care that they’re using peer-to-peer,” Garland said. “They use it without knowing or caring because it’s easy, it’s comfortable and it works. It’s the very definition of the Internet. You can’t stop people using the Internet for entertainment. The problem is getting them to pay for it.”
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Also See:
seriously embarrassed CRIA – CRIA ‘biggest ever pirate bust’ debacle, March 10, 2008
Toronto Star – File-sharers should get ready to pay, say experts, March 9, 2008
copyright cops – Britain to turn ISPs into corporate copyright cops, February 12, 2008
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March 10th, 2008 at 9:24 am
As the internet enables more and more people to become distributors of their own creations, how will these fees be distributed? Based on play-time on the radio as it is today (at least in Sweden). Some gigantic site that keeps track of all downloads is not a feasible solution either, since they can’t track the private copying anyway.
Point is, however they chose to distribute the money this fee collects, it WILL be unfair!
March 10th, 2008 at 10:25 am
maybe not pushing RIAA music sources down our throats might help too. most people I believe would welcome more avenues to find the music they want to listen to including paid subscriptions but napster and rhapsody are their versions they are still trying to cut out any competition even in music subscriptions. Bertelsmann (BMG) put money into the original napster and I am wondering just how many others have invested in the current version of napster and are in rhapsody behind the scenes since these are the only music services they are promoting as legit.
March 10th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
ELIMINATE ALL MIDDLEMAN ROYALTY COLLECTORS
“As the internet enables more and more people to become distributors of their own creations, how will these fees be distributed?”
As a recent story said, RIAA, so they say, has not found a way to distribute the money obtained (earned is not right) from lawsuits,
The songwriter union (ASCAP) has also not found a way other than a radio play sampling system that is just plain fraud.
Really, lets not be naive. There is no way any organization whose owners (or the so called membership) have a profit motive will want to find a way to fairly distribute wahtever income there is and if they find a way, fraud will take over.
Then, what is the solution?
1. The collection process must be socialized. Yes I know, goverment cannot be trusted for such matters. They can be trusted only to produce atomic bombs, armaments and war.
2. Strict record keeping of sales (CD/DVD…). Simple with computers.
3. Strict record keeping of public performances (radio/clubs/concerts/internet) and audience size. Simple with computers.
4. ELIMINATE ALL MIDDLEMAN ROYALTY COLLECTORS such as music publisher, artists managers and record companies. If these are needed by artists and songwriters for promotion, they should be paid by the artists after they are paid.
5. Open all records to public view and public scrutiny. The Internet makes it a breeze. In the old system everything is “confidential” and we know whose (certainly not the artists and sondwriters) idea is to keep everything secret.
Sure, no one wants to be on the work end of record keeping but that is part of commerce, industry, government, payrolls, etc. Record keeping is far easier and automated today thanever.
Respect for performing musicians-artists and songwriters should make the work unobjectionable.
March 10th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
âRaising awareness of the [questionable] morality [& unabashed hypocrisy] of the RIAA would appear to be working…”
March 10th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
What if you don’t download music, do you still have to pay? What if you download TV shows? Or movies? All the focus is on music, but the P2P networks and other sources are used for a lot more than just songs. Personally, I hardly ever download music.
March 10th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
What about books, art work, videos? You can’t compensate music, without everyone else! Which effectively renders it inapplicable.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
âThe shift will be to subscription services costing (high bandwidth users) a fee, as much as $12 a month,â
In your Dream Buddy! We are not going to feed parasites like you anyway!
We will oppose and resist any extortion scheme you try to put on the table until you die.
We need no funking Vivendi Universal, No Bloody Sony/BMG, No Crapy EMI and no moroninc Time Warner because we can and will pay the artists we like directly.
We don’t need no fucking RIAA!
March 10th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I DL tons of Linux distros all the time, some are DVD iso files, that’s a lot of GBs, I DL these distributions over encrypted connections; now, prove I’m not.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:57 am
“What about books, art work, videos? You canât compensate music, without everyone else! Which effectively renders it inapplicable.”
The Canadian Private Copying Collective is already acting as a collection agency for Big music.
They have been compensating music “without everyone else” since the century turned over.
http://cpcc.ca/english/finHighlights.htm
They have collected $200 million off us so far from recordable CDs. The distribution is based on representative samples of commercial radio airplay and album sales.
When a new indie band hands me their brand new CD they just made and are so proud of, I always think about how they had to pay a tariff (which they probably aren’t even aware of) on each blank CD, to a bunch of Parasites… for WHAT?