More IFPI disinformation
p2pnet.net News:- The latest report from the Big Four record label-owned IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) kicks off with two blatantly inaccurate disinformation statements:
That: “illegal file-sharing is kept in check as broadband use surges” and that “Music fans worldwide turn to legal downloads; lawsuits and spyware top concerns for file-sharers”.
Neither assertion bears any resemblance to reality.
Music fans are in fact staying away from corporate music sites in their hundreds of millions, refusing to pay $1 or more for downloads worth only pennies and polluted with DRM.
Instead, more and more people are turning to independent music sites, continuing to get their fixes from the p2p networks, or looking to the handful of distributors offering inexpensive mp3 downloads and which, because of this, are under attack from the Big Four music cartel.
The labels accuse file sharers of being thieves. However, nothing is stolen, no money changes hands and it’s never been shown that file sharing has meant the loss of even one sale.
Moreover, the much-touted cartel lawsuits aimed at intimidating consumers into buying industry ‘product’ are having zero effect, claims from the IFPI and similar label-owned ‘trade’ associations to the contrary notwithstanding.
The average number of users simultaneously connected to p2p networks each month around the world soared from 3,847,565 in August, 2003, 8.9 million in June, 2005.
However, “The IFPI figures indicate that the surge in broadband use globally is benefiting the legal music business while illegal file-sharing remains virtually flat,” it states unblushingly. “Infringing music files available on file-sharing networks and websites rose slightly (3%) from 870 million in January to 900 million, while broadband lines installed grew four times faster at 13%.”
Every month, upwards of a billion files are shared on the p2p networks. And the industry chooses to ignore the fact that if its ‘product’ was being marketed at 25 to 50 cents per download, say, instead of a dollar or more, its shareholders would be raking in enormous profits based on p2p sales and significantly reduced manufacturing, marketing, PR, legal, distribution, storage, print and other costs.
Currently, compressed, lossy mp3 copies of music which has already appeared on CDs and DVDs are going for anything between 65 and 75 cents each, forcing music ‘services’ to overcharge.
And instead of reducing wholesale prices, the Big Music cartel plans to increase them.
“Legal music downloads in the first six months of 2005 in the US, the UK, Germany and France outstripped the total for the whole of last year,” says the IFPI. “Single track downloads in these markets have risen to 180 million in the first half of 2005 compared to 157 million for the whole of 2004. This is more than three times the 57 million downloads of the first half of 2004.”
These numbers mean nothing against what’s happening in the real world of online music, and yet most most mainstream media outlets continue to report them as if they’re credible statistics from credible sources.
“The legitimate market is responding to that demand, with over 300 digital sites now available worldwide – three times the number of one year ago,” says the IFPI.
However, once again, this statement is disingenuous.
To all intents and purposes, there’s one, not 300, corporate sites. And that’s Apple’s iTunes which is reporting that it’s managed to sell a mere 500 million tracks since it started in 2003.
The remainder are struggling in a marketplace which hasn’t yet developed.
But we can expect the lawsuits against innocent people to continue, and we can count on the cartels maintaining, if not increasing, their infiltration of school systems around the world as they flood classrooms with marketing propaganda dressed up as ‘education’ programs.
"We are encouraged by the success and feedback surrounding the recent parents educational campaign launched by Childnet International and Pro-music ‘Young People, Music and the Internet’, with tens of thousands of leaflets already going to hundreds of retailers and libraries in Europe and North America," it boasts.
And people are now "increasingly likely to face legal actions against them," says IFPI boss John Kennedy. "They are ordinary men and women in ordinary occupations – doctors, students, teachers, cooks, nurses, and even a judge. But they are having to learn the hard way that the price for file-sharing illegally can be as a high as a fine of several thousand euros."
However, even this statement is false.
As a number of academic and other studies have shown, the chances of an individual being singled out in an entertainment cartel lawsuit are in the order of him or her being struck by lightning, or of winning the pools or a lottery. And the odds are shrinking exponentially as more and more people go online and as more and more blogs spread the word that once again, the customer is in charge.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
simultaneously connected – p2p file sharing still rising, p2pnet, July 11, 2005
flood classrooms – The Big Lie: Part II, p2pnet, July 8, 2005
