Here's another thought for you guys. All of the Tasty's out there that don't think the artists against p2p file sharing. This is from the AFTRA (American Federation of Television & Radio Artists). ie, the Union for many of the artists out there. You can find this at
http://www.aftra.org/ . One thing you have to remember, while Madonna or Metalica may not hurt from losing the cash, there are plenty of studio musicians and others that are being directly hurt by file sharing. It's no different stealing music, books, movies, or software. You may as well shoplift your copy of Raven Shield as download it from some bit torrent. It's the same thing. And "sharing" music is no different then stealing the CD from the truck that was shipping it. Shit, if you at least stole it from the store you'd only be hurting your local store, the industry and the artists would still get the cash.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT PIRACY
Ann Chaitovitz
National Director, Sound Recordings
AFTRA
Piracy has devastated the music industry and now threatens other entertainment industries and all performers' livelihoods. For example, a pre-final cut of the movie "The Hulk" was on the Internet pre-release, and the "Harry Potter" movie landed on the Internet pre-US release (due to a screening in London).
The problems of piracy are not new. For example, most of us made cassettes of our dorm-mates' albums in college. But with taping, the album was only available to a limited number of people and there was degradation in quality from the vinyl record to the cassette.
While digital technology has created many opportunities for the industry and for performers, when a recording is posted on-line, it is:
available to millions of people,
who are able to copy it quickly,
without any degradation of quality.
We must remember that technology is not bad or the enemy. We must harness opportunities of technology and minimize the threats -- something the music industry has been unable to do.
Just as radio was the canary in the coal mine for media consolidation, music is the canary in the coal mine tale for Internet piracy. Because of limitations on bandwidth and compression technologies, music was one of first types of works to be vulnerable to Internet piracy, but as those limitations are disappearing, other types of works are now becoming vulnerable. Approximately, 400,000 to 600,000 films are downloaded illegally everyday.
How Did We Get Here?
So, why have so many people turned to illegitimate music piracy? We must understand the causes of music piracy, so other industries can learn from them and not repeat the same mistakes.
Music Piracy is largely a reaction to the radio and music industry's inadequate servicing of fans that want music. At the same time technology was developing, five other important things were happening:
Cassettes and singles were being eliminated: singles have been each generation's first experience in buying music. The single would bring young people into the stores and introduce them to purchasing music.
The record labels stopped or restricted new artist development.
The record labels focused on the 12 to 25 year-old demographic and mostly ignored those over 35.
The record industry tried to freeze the existing paradigm and keep control over distribution mechanisms. It did not take advantage of the opportunities presented by new technology -- until fairly recently, the record labels did not work with new technologies or offer good legitimate services.
This forced people who wanted to take advantage of the opportunities presented by new technology to use illegitimate services and created an entire generation of people who think music is, and should be, free.
The consolidation of owners within the radio industry is one of the major causes of piracy. Consolidation resulted in homogenized and narrow repetitive playlists which forced music fans to try to find music in new ways, and there weren't any legitimate alternatives available, so many music fans turned to illegitimate services.
Where We Are Now
Piracy now threatens the music industry. Here are some statistics evidencing the threat:
The worldwide industry went from $40 billion in 2000 to $26 billion in 2002 (not all due to piracy -- other factors include the recession, competition from DVDs, etc.).
Users now download more than 2.6 billion copyrighted files, mostly songs, each month.
KaZaa, a major peer-to-peer service, is adding new users at rate of 13 million a month, 270 new members a minute.
Blank CDs outstrip sales of pre-recorded music CDs by more than a 2 to 1 margin.
Piracy hurts artists, songwriters, the music industry and the public. It makes it even more difficult for an artist to earn a livelihood and to continue honing his or her craft. It harms the ability of the artist to earn health and retirement benefits -- if artists are unable to earn enough to qualify for health and retirement, they may then have to go on public assistance, hurting taxpayers. As the music industry suffers and finds it difficult to make a profit, there will be less investment in new music, one of the few U.S. exports with a positive balance of trade.
There also are economic repercussions: one needs broadband and computer access, which tend to to be more prevalent in the middle and upper classes, to download music files. As a result, poorer citizens, who still have to purchase music, have to pay higher rates to subsidize the wealthier citizens, who can download.
What We Must Do
We are now playing catch up, and we need a multi-pronged line of attack in order to recreate a profitable U.S. music industry. We need to:
offer comprehensive legitimate services
?? these services must offer more than the illegitimate services - e.g. access to artists, priority tickets to live shows, a week of free streaming
educate the public about the dangers of the illegitimate services (e.g., pornography, enabling public access to information contained on one's computer) and make the illegitimate services more unwieldy by practices like spoofing
educate the public about intellectual property and its artistic, cultural and economic value
undo the problems created by radio consolidation
enact legislation to educate the public and clarify the law. There are two pieces of legislation now pending which demonstrate that Congress has acknowledged and is trying to address the devastating impact on-line piracy has had on artists, the music industry and the public. The legislation recognizes the reality of the on-line environment and would provide the government with the resources and authority needed to educate the public and develop deterrence programs.
Music owners must sue services that are making money by providing opportunities and encouraging people to infringe sound recordings
Music owners may even need to sue individual infringers. The district court in Grokster, currently on appeal, ruled that companies who make money by creating and distributing the software enabling and encouraging copyright infringement are not liable for their customers' infringement and that copyright owners have to sue the individuals committing the infringement. The goal of such cases would be to educate the public about the law and the value of intellectual property and to deter future infringements
?? The RIAA's announcement that it was subpoenaing the identities of individuals who have uploaded copyrighted recordings has had a deterrent effect and reduced the number of downloads.
It may already be too late to significantly reduce peer to peer on-line piracy. Should we now acknowledge that peer to peer piracy will continue to exist, try to lessen its pervasiveness and figure out how to monetize it?
Other industries should pay attention to the lessons to be learned from new technology's impact on the music industry.
