Big 4 labels set to copy pirates
p2pnet news view Music:- When the word ‘free’ crops up in anything even remotely connected to Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG, you know it’ll be anything but.
Now, reporting from the Midem corporate orgy staged (words used advisedly) in Cannes, France, “Online and mobile services offering listeners unlimited ‘free’ access to millions of songs are set to proliferate in the coming months, according to music industry executives,” says the New York Times.
“Unlike illegal file-sharing services, which the music industry says are responsible for billions of dollars in lost sales, these new offerings are perfectly legal, writes Etic Pfanner,” apparently unaware a US Federal judge has cast icy water on Big 4 claims that files shared automatically equal the loss of staggering amounts of money.
But, “The services are not really free,” admits the story.
Payment is, “included in the cost of, say, a new cellphone or a broadband Internet access contract, so the cost to the consumer is disguised.”
Not only but also, “unlike pirate sites, these services provide revenue to the music companies.”
Then, “Two thousand nine should be the year when the music industry stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb,” the NYT has punk-turned-industry-mouth Feargal Sharkey saying.
Sharkey is in charge of UK Music, a Big 4 ‘trade group’. 
Big 4 plans to force ISPs into acting as corporate copyright cops are already well in hand, with New Zealand set to become the first country in the world to operate a music industry ‘three strikes and you’re out’ government enforcement system, funded by local taxpayers.
Now, the Isle of Man will compel consumers with broadband subscriptions to pay a “nominal monthly license fee” to, “legally download music from any source, even peer-to-peer services that are outlawed currently,” says the story, quoting Ron Berry, Isle of Man “inward investment manager, as declaring:
“At the end of the day, we are not going to stop piracy, so let’s embrace it.”
New York Times – Music Industry Imitates Digital Pirates to Turn a Profit, January 18, 2009
cast icy water – `Files shared don`t equal sales lost,` judge rules, January 16, 2009
first country in the world – New Zealand: official corporate copyright cop, January 19, 2009
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January 20th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Perhaps Qtrax can help stop piracy someday!
January 20th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
My first thought upon reading the title was “what?, they’re going to start selling bootleg copies of their own products from the back of their minivans?” I’m guessing they want an extra $10~$20 dollars a month for this latest “service offer”.
Didn’t the big 4 already try this pitch a year or two ago and fail miserably?
January 21st, 2009 at 2:07 pm
If it’s only $10-$20 a month extra, with no DRM, I can see it flying, so long as quality is 192 kps or higher, and doesn’t exclude anything. It also can’t be USA only.
If it has ANY HINT of DRM, poor quality, USA only, or excludes what people want, it will fail.
In other words, chances are very good we’re going to see it crash and burn.