RIAA ‘free’ download plot bombs
p2p news / p2pnet: Schools, colleges and universities are supposed to be places where people learn. But that’s no longer the case as far as the international entertainment cartels are concerned, with the software industry coming up close behind.
Instead, teaching institutions have become units where pupils can be indoctrinated with the ‘consume, consume’ mindset under threat of special treatment if they fail to fall into line.
One of the most significant early scores for the Big Four Organized Music gang was to use Napster to insinuate ‘product’ into junior and senior US universities, turning them into sales divisions with school staffs acting as the unpaid help, and students as captive ‘consumers’.
Warner Music, Vivendi Universal, EMI and Sony BMG coerced Penn State into becoming the first school to use Napster, and it remains firmly linked to the corporate music industry.
The implication for it, and for other teaching institutions was, and is: if students use download sites backed and supplied by the Big Four, they might escape becoming Big Four victims. If they don’t, some of them – a very few, but still more than enough for corporate PR purposes – could end up receiving subpoenas designed to terrify them and other students into becoming compliant consumers.
But non-stop media and industry hype notwithstanding, it seems it’s all been a waste of time, exemplified by Cornell University student Angelo Petrigh who, although he had access to “free” online music via a “legal” music-downloading service, “still turned to illegal file-sharing programs”.
Why?
Because, “While Cornell’s online music program, through Napster, gave him and other students free, legal downloads, the email introducing the service explained that students could keep their songs only until they graduated,” explains The Wall Street Journal, going on, ” ‘After I read that, I decided I didn’t want to even try it,’ says Mr. Petrigh, who will be a senior in the fall at the Ithaca, N.Y., school.”
Stanford, another premier US university, was also talked into operating a scheme under which Apple’s iTunes is the funnel for Warner Music, Vivendi Universal, EMI and Sony BMG downloads.
Meanwhile, “College students don’t turn down much that’s free,” the WSJ continues, “But when it comes to online music,” neither “free” [nor Big Music threats] have been enough, “to persuade many students to use such digital download services as Napster, Rhapsody, Ruckus and Cdigix”. As a result, “some schools have dropped their services, and others are considering doing so or have switched to other providers”.
That’s in spite of the fact, “While a typical monthly subscription to Napster is $9.95, the schools have been able to cut special deals, funded in part by record companies,” says the story, going on:
“Purdue University officials say that lower-than-expected demand among its students stems in part from all the frustrating restrictions that accompany legal downloading. Students at the West Lafayette, Ind., school can play songs free on their laptops but have to pay to burn songs onto CDs or load them onto a digital music device.
“There’s also the problem of compatibility: The services won’t run on Apple Computer Inc. computers, which are owned by 19% of college students, according to a 2006 survey of 1,200 students by the research group Student Monitor. In addition, the files won’t play on Apple iPods, which are owned by 42% of college students,” according to a survey from Campus Computing Project, quoted in the WSJ story.
The virtually non-existent corporate music industry business relies on online stores through which punters rent music, paying X amount every month. As soon as they stop paying, their carefully compiled libraries instantly vanish, meaning the money spent acquiring them also goes down the drain.
Ably assisted by the ever-compliant mainstream media, the Big Four claim they’re doing gang-buster business and the services they back and supply claim downloan rentals are The Way!
But, No Way. In fact, tremendous pressure on consumers by the music industry notwithstanding, increasing numbers of people are turning to indie services and sites for their music fixes.
“USC decided last year that it was finished with Napster after fewer than 500 students signed up, and it moved to Ruckus, hoping students would find that service more appealing,” the story continues.
Now, neither Cornell nor Purdue will offer “free” music next year, even though an an anonymous donor [guess who] had paid for Cornell to offer Napster for two years, says the WSJ, which also has the Campus Computing Project’s Kenneth C. Green, saying, “The RIAA’s push to buy into these services strikes me as protection money. Buy in and we’ll protect you from our lawsuits.”
RIAA president Cary Sherman disputes this, also denying that subscription services have fallen out of favour, at the same time darkly hinting that RIAA near-monthly subpoena campaigns, which have been significantly absent, of late, may be expected to resume in the fall when, “The number of campuses that subscribe will increase ‘pretty significantly’.”
In September, 2005, he remained “hopeful” that the unsavoury RIAA “partnerships” would “flourish”.
It seems his hopes have been dashed, but that won’t stop his masters from continuing in their to attempts to try to blackmail students into buying shabby, over-priced product,’ as the Big Four call their musical offerings.
Digg this.
Also See:
remains firmly linked – Big Music university shill report, September 21, 2005
The Wall Street Journal – Free, Legal and Ignored, July 6, 2006
scheme – Stanford, Apple love-in, January 26, 2006
increasing numbers – P2p file sharing escalates, July 3, 2006
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July 6th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
for students of those schools that ceased to provide “free” digital downloads…