Is p2p ‘legitimate’?
p2pnet.net News View:- "Peer-to-peer goes legitimate"
That’s a headline from a BBC Click Online item.
Does that mean that until now p2p has been ‘illegitimate’? Of course not. But the header nonetheless suggests p2p is in some way ‘dodgy,’ lending weight to the entertainment industry’s spurious claims that there’s something wrong with p2p and file sharing.
Matt Phillips of the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) says in a quote:
"It’s not necessarily the artists of today that are going to feel the pinch [caused by file sharing]. It’s going to be the guy who’s just done his demo and goes to the record company and tries to get a deal and they say: ’sorry, we can’t actually afford to sign you right now’.
" ‘It’s that kind of thing that we desperately want to avoid’."
That’s arrant nonsense, but it’s offered as a serious possibility.
The BBC story doesn’t ask if a refusal to deal with the reality that the 21st century is a digital, not physical, world, or that over-priced, poor quality ‘product,’ as the music industry defines music, may be at least partially responsible for Big Music’s problems.
A recent The Economist feature says according to an internal study done by one of the major labels, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the drop in sales in America had nothing to do with internet piracy:
"No-one knows how much weight to assign to each of the other explanations: rising physical CD piracy, shrinking retail space, competition from other media, and the quality of the music itself,” it says, going on that, "Music bosses agree that the majors have a creative problem. Alain Levy, chairman and chief executive of EMI Music, told Billboard magazine this year that too many recent acts have been one-hit wonders and that the industry is not developing durable artists."
It also says, “The internet will eventually be wonderful for music buyers, but it is still a threat to today’s dominant record labels.”
That, and not p2p’s ‘legitimacy,’ is the problem.
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See:-
a threat – Music’s brighter future, The Economist, October 28, 2004
December 19th, 2004 at 5:58 pm
P2P is considered dubious, because its a “semi-underground” movement…
December 19th, 2004 at 11:39 pm
’sorry, we can’t actually afford to sign you right now’.
” ‘It’s that kind of thing that we desperately want to avoid’.”
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HAHA well guess why?!?! cause the internet pretty much destroys any need for a record lable…. technology has gotten to a point, where if you are tallented, and have even a minimum wage job, u can produce, record, and distribute your own music, without the help of a ‘record label’………
so haha yea ofcoures thats what they want to ‘avoid’ … cause then these big wigs who sit around smoking cigars all day wont get any money…
the new music buisness model requires that there is no such thing as a record lable, and each artist is an independant expression of themselves.. the way music should be
December 21st, 2004 at 9:01 am
the large music publising companies and labels are very scared of p2p as it allows people to hear an album before deciding whether to buy it or not. the fear is that if they hear the filler the albums are mainly stuffed with, they wont actually buy albums anymore and instead just dowload the singles.
personally i use p2p to download things i am interested in and things i have absolutely no intention of buying. if i download something i like, maybe i buy it. if i see a band/artist live in lowkey settings and i like them i try to buy the album directly from the artist.
p2p is the new radio. cos the old radio only plays what they want you to hear!
December 22nd, 2004 at 4:08 am
Can’t believe that BPI spokesman said that, what with 2004 being a record breaking year for UK music sales. More CD albums were sold this year than EVER before, crashing through the previous best sometime in Sep/Oct.
Can’t afford to sign new talent? In the UK every other advert on TV is for a music CD, they have increasing sales year in year out in the UK, there is no way that they can make a statement like that, they certainly don’t seem short of advertising money.
Despite an explosion of Broadband in the UK in the past few years AND MP3 players, CD sales still go up.
A cynical person might believe that all this p2p business is just over hyped or used to justify price increases.
December 27th, 2004 at 1:41 am
HELLO