Copyright, according to Merriam Webster is defined as “the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something such as a literary, musical, or artistic work” (Merriam- Webster). Since the turn of the 21st century, the issue of copyright and copyright infringement have been hot topics. Ever since the advent of the peer to peer file sharing with the existence of Napster, Kazaa and Limewire and other forms of media entertainment, record labels have been ferociously fighting to protect the content of their and protect their profits.
The music industry dropped the ball in the late 1990’s when it failed to pick up on the newest technology out at the time, the internet. The industry failed to prepare for what was to come in terms of quickly losing control of its content to tech savvy computer users. The industry should have taken a more proactive stance in the way how they sell music to its customers. Instead of believing that the audience would continually pay exorbitant amounts of money to purchase a mediocre album with 2 or 3 “good” songs, they should have started selling singles online to set a precedent on how music should be bought and used. But now that more tech savvy users are taking advantage of peer to peer music sites, the industry is fighting back by filing lawsuits against those who “steal” music.
In one case, 12 year old Brianna LaHara in New York, “told the New York Post she was terrified to learn she was among the hundreds of people sued for alleged copyright infringement. “I thought it was OK to download music because my mom paid a service fee for it. Out of all people, why did they pick me?"”. Brianna’s mother, Sylvia Torres claims the lawsuit “was a total shock”. She says she purchased Kazaa for a $29.99 surcharge and did not realize that peer to peer downloading was illegal (PBS: Online News Hour). Cases like these are causing a fan backlash against a dying music industry.
A result of music downloading has been the large decline in record sales within the past 8 years. According to an MSNBC report, record sales declined a whopping 17% from the previous year and the decline is primarily caused by music downloading. Record downloading sales jumped 53% to 250.8 million compared to 164.2 million in the same period last year, according to the report (MSNBC: Album Sales decline as downloads are up).
Some artists are adapting to this wave of digital music downloading by practically giving their music away for free online. In an extremely risky way, Radiohead, release its album entitled In Rainbows for free or for whatever the buyer felt the albums was worth, available for download. Approximately 1.2 million downloaded to the tune of $10 million dollars profit (Wired: Radiohead $10 million in album sales). They are basically giving their buyers a chance to decide what there album was worth by letting them decide what to pay for it. I’m sure Radiohead received additional media publicity and money from concert sales as well.
So the Music Recording Industry has a ways to go if it wants to ever recover from dropping the ball in the late 1990’s when it failed to adapt to the technological revolution which was the internet. This is the first time that the public is able to get something for free instantly. And that's something that the Recording Industry has yet come to grips with. How do you compete with free?
Associated Press. “Album sales decline as downloads are up.” MSNBC. 20 Apr 2007. < http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18220349/>
Buskirk, Eliot Van. “ Estimates: Radiohead Made Up To $10 Million on Initial Album Sales.” Wired. 19 Oct 2007. < http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/10/estimates-radio.html>
Merriam-Webster Online.
Online News Hour. “MUSIC INDUSTRY FILES HUNDREDS OF LAWSUITS AGAINST INTERNET SONG SWAPPERS.” PBS. <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/media_watch/july-dec03/riaalawsuits_09-09-03.html>
2 comments:
I always wondered about that too, how they picked people to sue that is over the piracy of music. I heard cases where middle school and high school kids were having letters sent to there house saying they have been caught. My question is why go after innocent people who just download a few songs here and there, why not go after the people forming the sites and the huge users sharing gigabytes upon gigabytes.
Either way i think its all pretty stupid and it should be legal to download music. If its available, use it!
I think that the music industry really did drop the ball when they didn't look into the opportunities available to them through the internet in terms of distribution when it first became popular. Had they been forward thinkers we might not have had all these issues with copyright infringement and the record business would still be thriving the way it was during the mid 90s.
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