File swapping now illegal (at least in the USA)
The Economist are reporting today that America’s Supreme Court has ruled that makers of peer-to-peer file-swapping technology can be held responsible for the copyright infringement that their products allow. They say that “This may stop much of the free downloading of music and film over the internet, but it will not cure the entertainment business’s ills. Nor will it do much for innovation.”
Firstly, if they think it will stop downloading of music, they’re crazy. The ruling only applies to the USA, and how do they think they’re going to stop it happening? Who’s going to police it?
Secondly, this may stop innovation in the USA (I doubt it), but it will sput it on elsewhere in the world. Legal or not, file swapping is here to stay, and the industry had better get used to it. They’ve got a short reprieve – won a minor battle in a war they’re losing horribly. They’d better learn quickly how to profit from this, rather than fight it. File swapping is the natural extension of democracy, freedom, technology and the free market – all the things America stands for. Its created its own monster, and its can’t tame it again.
The industry are doing themselves irreprable harm at the moment. A 14 year old girl was fined just over $ 4,000 this past week for downloading files. Does the industry think that this will (a) stop this 14 year old ever doing that again, and (b) be a deterent for anyone else to stop the practice? Are they mad?
Part of the problem is the exorbitant nature of the costs of the industry. Everyone who has ever been into a computer shops knows that the actual hard cost of a CD with all its packaging is about $1 – and that’s if you’re being ripped off, and don’t have access to whopping great machines that can churn them out in their thousands. We pay $20 and more a CD because the industry has gotten out of control. It pays Mariah Carey a ridiculous number of millions of dollars NOT to sing another album. And it expects us to pay for that massive blunder!! Wake up, record companies, the free market is talking to you – SHOUTING in fact.
What we need, just for starters, is to be able to purchase only the good tracks on an album – only those tracks we like. We need also to be able to mix and match our selections. We need an experience in the purchase, too – something you can’t get online. There are hundreds of things you could do in such an experience – a little creativity will go a long way. We also need the record execs to know that the gravy train is over. But then, maybe it isn’t. They can still make great money out of live concerts. Those are great experiences, too.
Maybe its time to consider the possibility that CD albums are free marketing for live concerts. Hey, why not?
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Sounds like the music industry is struggling to find legal reasons to stop the inevitable. A bit like arresting Al Capone for tax evasion. Not a good comparison, but it’s what came to mind!!
I also find it interesting that the inviolability of copyrights and trade marks are coming under fire recently (eg the recent Carling Black Label v Laugh It Off case). Do you think technology will eventually nullify the need for these “protections”? Or is it just that industries will have to be more creative about how they make their money?
I think it will take a huge mindshift. Not everyone will ‘get it’ and be able to do so. Watch this space…
At http://www.marketingweb.co.za/marketing/456611.htm you can read a wonderfully written article on rooibos, boerboels, and other trademark problem matters that South Africans have had recently as they tried to export their wares overseas. The author strikes just the right tone, and gives some great advice as well.
A good read!
Surely the technolgy is here to do the following:
1. A user can download a pice of music for “one to five plays” of the song and pays 1$ after the song has been played the agreed number of times, it self deletes or becomes deactivated. It can be reactivated for a fee as per one of the options
2. A user can download the song for any number of plays over a period of a month for $2 and then the same as the above occurs
3. A user can download the song and own it forever for $4
The whole thing behind music swapping and file sharing is this. We all hear the latest Groban or Collective Soul song on the radio. We love it, but the rest of the album is not nearly as good. We are unhappy to buy the whole CD for only 1 or 3 songs we like, so it is better to download the song/s we do like. If the music industry spent money developing the kinds of options I discussed above, they would have to spend a lot less money on lawyer. An interesting model on audio books can be found at Audible.com. You pay a monthly fee, you get to download 2 audio boks per month an listen to them via your ipod or palm or whatever device you have. The book companies seem to be embracing it, why not the music industry!