P2p file sharing escalates
p2p news / p2pnet: To no one’s surprise (except the mainstream media and entertainment cartels, of course) not only has here been no let up in file sharing since the US Supreme Court’s so-called Grokster decision, the practice of ignoring corporate music offerings in favour of what’s available in the real world of online music continues to steadily increase.
Or as the San Jose Mercury News expresses it, “illegal file sharing is as popular as ever even as Silicon Valley technologists and Hollywood moguls continue their awkward embrace”.
The embrace is awkward indeed.
RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) boss Mitch Bainwol recently claimed ‘illegal’ music sharing has been kept within limits. “The problem has not been eliminated,” he said famously, “But we believe digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business, and file-trading is flat.”
Neither statement is true, or anywhere near true, however.
Twenty-four seven, hundreds of millions of music lovers, or “criminals’ and “thieves,” as the RIAA calls them, eschew Big Four ‘product,’ preferring to get their music fixes from AllofMP3.com, or one of the growing number of independent music sites launched by professional and amateur musicians, or to the free p2p networks.
This May, globally, the number of p2p users simultaneously logged on at any given moment was 9,735,661, p2p research firm Big Champagne told p2pnet. In May, 2005, the number was 8,665,319 and in 2004, 7,286,377.
In the US in May, 2005, the number was 6,290,327 and in 2004, it was 4,589,255, and it’s estimated around 60 million Americans have shared with each other.
The RIAA score of subpoenas sent to victims including young children is, however, only 19,000, and not one of the people being persecuted by the RIAA has ever appeared in a civil trial.
Patti Santangelo, a single New York mother of five, will be the first, to do so, taking on the multi-billion-dollar music industry in the first US case of its kind.
Meanwhile, “The court’s unanimous decision that Internet file-sharing services can be sued if they encourage people to use their sophisticated software to steal copyrighted material was hailed as a victory by the entertainment world,” continues the San Jose Mercury News. “But the ruling hasn’t stopped the lawsuits and acrimony between the two sides. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) continues to sue tech companies. And in the past year, it filed some 6,000 suits against individuals it says are stealing material.”
Led by Bainwol, with RIAA president Cary Sherman bringing up the rear, the RIAA and similar Big Four Organized Music outfits in others parts of the world use tax-payer funded enforcement and government agencies to try to intimidate the Big Four’s own customers in a fruitless attempt to force them to buy over-priced, low quality digital downloads.
Our screenshit (upper right) shows a pre-Bainwol Sherman in an i-Safe Times newsletter when the bizarre RIAA sue ‘em all marketing campaign was launched.
This didn’t work in September, 2003, when the RIAA became the first Warner Music (US), Vivendi Universal (France), EMI (Britain) and Sony BMG (Japan, Germany) ‘trade’ organization to launch sue your own customers marketing scheme. And it doesn’t work now.
“Andrew Lack, then chief executive at Sony BMG Music Entertainment,” predicted when the Grokster decision was announced, says the Associated Press, quoting him as declaring, “We will no longer have to compete with thieves in the night whose businesses are built on larceny,” harking back to another statement Lack made in 2003 when he said, “It is stealing. This is about criminals and thieves in the night.”
But p2p sharing, “continues to thrive, with firms behind favorite applications such as eDonkey, LimeWire, Morpheus and Kazaa, among others, still in business,” says AP.
Kazaa, whose owner, Sharman Networks, and ceo, Nikki Hemming, are currently suing p2pnet, may still be in business, but only by the skin of its teeth as it continues to pretend it’s on the side of the p2p community whilst simultaneously trying to climb into bed with the entertainment cartels.
Moreover, the bulk of the men, women and children being harrassed by the RIAA in the US were, to their continuing misfortune, using Kazaa.
“Although the threat of litigation did force the operators of BearShare, WinMX and i2Hub to shut down, the number of people using file-sharing services has gone up,” says AP, referring to the Big Champagne statistics reported by p2pnet last month.
“We don’t suggest that (unauthorized file-sharing) has been conquered, far from it,” it has Bainwol saying. “But it’s not fundamentally decapitating the legal marketplace from growing in a pretty robust fashion.”
“Robust” in RIAA parlance means Apple’s iTunes, the leading corporate download service. iTunes, though not only isn’t it a genuine service, it’s a sales vehicle for iPods, it’s at odds with the Big Four over pricing.
They want to boost some of their already exorbitant wholesale rates beyond the existing 60 to 85 cents the labels presently charge for each download. Apple, however, wisely wants to leave things where they are.
Compared to the number of people regularly tapping non-corporate downoads, only a tiny handful of people use iTunes, Real Networks or Napster, or the few other ’services’ supplied by the Big Four, willingly paying $1 or more, depending on location, for downloads worth only a few cents. But even they might balk if the charges go beyond a dollar.
Meanwhile, “free downloaders represent a lost opportunity for the entertainment industry,” says the Los Angeles Times.
“The number of legitimate outlets for music, TV shows and movies online may be growing, but file-sharing networks continue to attract a much larger audience.”
The Grokster ruling, “wasn’t simply a nudge for companies like Grokster to get out of the file-sharing business. It was an invitation for the entertainment industry to get in. By clarifying the legal obligations of file-sharing companies, the Grokster ruling created a road map for partnerships between tech and entertainment companies.”
The services supplied and supported by the Big Four, “haven’t come up with an offer as compelling as free files that can easily be played on any device,” says the story, adding:
“So far, however, talks between leading file-sharing firms and entertainment conglomerates have yielded few tangible results. Labels and studios have warmed a bit to popular but bootleg-heavy sites such as YouTube.com, where users post most of the videos, yet they remain extremely cautious about letting users redistribute their works.
“The industry needs much more experimentation with approaches that give users the control and freedom to consume that make file-sharing networks so attractive. Instead of hoping that millions of Internet users on file-sharing networks will go somewhere else and pay for their downloads, it’s past time to try to do business with them where they are.”
Digg this.
Also See:
San Jose Mercury News – Illegal file sharing showing no letup, July 3, 2006
kept within limits – P2p file sharing contained: RIAA, June 13, 2006
pre-Bainwol Sherman – Open letter to parents, July 2, 2006
Associated Press – Despite Court ruling, file sharing still thrives, June 30, 2006
suing p2pnet – Anonymous p2pnet poster named, June 29, 2006
Los Angeles Times – Winning over the freeloaders, July 1, 2006
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July 3rd, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Patience, little grasshopper, patience! One day, the BigFour will gain wisdom and enlightenment. But ’til that day, please, share any files you want! Remember, sharing is eternal!
July 3rd, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Remeber Bagdad Bob?
July 3rd, 2006 at 3:51 pm
an like p2pnet says “hype springs eternal” or something. hehe
July 3rd, 2006 at 9:57 pm
I think apple did the public a disservice by not letting the market set the price of a bloated MP3…
If apple let’s the market charge the appropriate rate (meaning if RIAA wants to charge $1.75 for the newest hot 100 track), the market will correct itself. RIAA will soon realize that (most) people aren’t willing to pay that much for a single song, and the price will naturally drop.
By fixing it at 99c, the general public is less likely to realize what a ripoff iTMS is in the first place, and will continue to buy that C.R.A.P. Eventually (hopefully), they’ll smarten up, but it will take a lot longer
July 3rd, 2006 at 10:23 pm
“The court’s unanimous decision that Internet file-sharing services can be sued if they encourage people to use their sophisticated software to steal copyrighted material was hailed as a victory by the entertainment world,” continues the San Jose Mercury News.
Applying the term “sophisticated” to file sharing software is, well, uh, sophistic, at best. Most of it is an additional layer of basic networking software with some additional search capabilities. Even bit torrent’s basic core functionality is relatively mundane. It’s the balls and whistles on the various GUIs plus all of the “revenue generation” features (pesty pop-ups & ads) that have nothing to do with copyright infringement that make it seem complex.
“Sophisticated software” would be an application that provides for real time control, tracking and reporting of a high power radar that tracks orbital space debris the size of a golf ball to within an accuracy of 1 meter to determine if it’s a threat to valuable space assets such as a communications satellite or a manned space vehicle.
Once again, the entertainment cartels are in hyper-spin mode peddling the falsehood that creating p2p software is some kind of black art that can only be practiced by a handful of evil nerds while engaged in bizarre rituals performed while wearing funny hats and ingesting pernicious sacraments of over-caffeinated beverages.
The assertion is just another big load of self-serving BS carefully constructed to scare people and make such software sound like it’s actually physically dangerous.
–TG
July 4th, 2006 at 5:51 am
yeah didnt Ed Felten & crew write a p2p app in 16 lines of code …?
I think it was called “Tiny”.