OECD p2p wake up call
p2pnet.net News:- The OECD has already reported that, contrary to Big Music cartel claims, file sharing is on the rise.
Now, in a report to be released today, it also suggests it’s, “difficult to establish a link between piracy and the music industry’s shrinking revenues,” says Wired News.
Moreover, the report says p2p networks have legitimate uses beyond trading copyright music and movies and that p2p is a, “new and innovative technology which finds increasingly useful applications in new communication and other services”.
A "re-evaluation" of music distribution is necessary to achieve a balance between consumers’ desire to access digital music and the industry’s copyright protection concerns, says the Paris-based OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
"Online technologies could evolve in a manner in which unauthorized use of copyright works are finally transformed into legitimate businesses," says OECD economist Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, one of the report’s authors.
“The report said it is difficult to establish a causal connection between the rise of file sharing and a drop in music sales,” says Wired, going on, “While the music industry’s revenues fell 20 percent from 1999 to 2003, other factors, such as illegal CD copying, might have played a role in the decline, the OECD said.”
“Piracy” is the word carefully selected by the entertainment and software industries as a euphemism for counterfeits, fakes or illegal duplications of any kind and they make a point of trying to link ‘piracy’ with file sharing and file sharers, although no such link exists.
However, the illusion is a vital component of their efforts to re-gain control of their consumer bases, which are steadily eroding as the influence of the internet and p2p increase.
Cash-cow consumers are vanishing and customers, with free choice and the means to enforce it, are returning, to the distress of the major record labels and movie studios, principally.
“The report recognized the value of fledgling online stores like Apple’s iTunes,” says Wired. “Last year represented a ‘turning point’ for legal music downloads, the study said.”
Online music distribution, however, accounted for only 1 to 2% of music revenues in 2004, says the report, giving the lie to industry claims that the corporate online music business is booming.
“The OECD expects to see that climb to 5 to 10 percent of revenues,” says Wired. “But growing online sales will depend on expanding catalogs to appease demand and sway illegal downloads, the OECD said.”
Predictably, the Big Music cartel’s IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), “criticized the report’s suggestion that P2P file sharing could play an important role in the music industry’s future,” says the story, quoting spokesman Adrian Strain as saying:.
"The report does not recognize the vast proportion of the use of P2P services that is infringing copyright. (It) fails to acknowledge the extent of the damage that this does to the legitimate industry and oversimplifies the issues surrounding DRMs (digital rights management) in the development of the online music sector."
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See:-
on the rise – P2p file sharing is increasing, p2pnet, January 4, 2005
Wired News – Come On Music Biz, Embrace P2P, June 13, 2005
