This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Labels & Publishers Legal Top Stories
CMU says: Online music piracy continues to grow – oh, what to do
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 16 December 2010
Illegal downloading is on the up, people. Or so says UK record label trade body the BPI, which reckons 7.7 million Brits continue to access music from unlicensed sources, with an estimated 1.2 billion tracks – 75% of all the digital songs acquired – being illegally downloaded in the UK last year.
And while the number of people using conventional P2P file-sharing software to illegally access music is steady, there has been a rise in people using links to music stored in cyberlocker services like RapidShare, and people accessing free MP3s from dodgy unlicensed websites that exist outside the UK.
And it’s got to stop, soon, OK? Well, that’s what the BPI says in the press blurb sent out with its Digital Music Nation 2010 report which carries all these piracy stats, as well as a review of the 67 legal digital music services currently operating in the UK. BPI top man Geoff Taylor says the continued growth of online piracy is a “parasite” stopping the legitimate digital music sector from achieving its real potential.
The solution? Well, in the short term, Geoff says, the government needs to get its arse into gear with regards the copyright provisions of the Digital Economy Act, and work out just how those warning letters are going to be sent out by internet service providers to their file-sharing customers, when and how net suspensions will be used against those who fail to heed the warnings, and at what point file-sharing kids can be legally culled. That was all in the DEA, right? I can’t remember, it’s a while since I read it.
While the record industry scored a big victory in getting most of the copyright proposals in the Digital Economy Bill through parliament before the last General Election, the labels are now starting to get tetchy about just when the anti-piracy system the DEA proposes will spring into operation. They fear plans for warning letters to start going out in early 2011 will not now be met, partly because of delays in OfCom’s review as to how the three-strikes system should work, and partly because of BT and TalkTalk’s decision to take the whole copyright section of the DEA to judicial review on the basis it violates European rules.
The Geoff man told reporters: “Digital music is now mainstream in the UK, with much to be proud of – nearly 70 legal services and a further increase in the numbers of digital singles and albums set to be sold online in 2010. Yet this growth is a fraction of what it ought to be. Illegal downloading continues to rise in the UK. It is a parasite that threatens to deprive a generation of talented young people of their chance to make a career in music, and is holding back investment in the burgeoning digital entertainment sector. As the internet becomes central to many aspects of our lives, including how we access our entertainment, we must decide whether we can afford to abandon ethical values we stand by elsewhere – that stealing is wrong; that creativity should be rewarded; that our culture defines who we are, and must be protected”.
He continued: “The creative industries employ two million people in the UK and are the fastest growing sector of the economy. Urgent action is needed to protect those jobs and allow Britain to achieve its potential in the global digital market. 2011 must be the year that the government acts decisively to ensure the internet supports creativity and respects the basic rules of fair play we embrace as a nation”.
Of course, as I’m sure we’ve said before, copyright owners like the BPI’s members should stamp their feet every so often when their intellectual property rights are being infringed, if only to guilt the honest majority into at least investigating the plethora of legal music services that are out there. And reports like that being published by the BPI today, with the accompanying press coverage, can be valuable as part of that feet stomping effort.
That said, copyright owners also have to accept they can only protect their rights to a point, after which it’s just not commercially viable to enforce your right to compensation. The question, I suppose, is where you draw the line. Even if the copyright section of the DEA was implemented in its entirety tomorrow, online piracy would continue and, even if it did decline to an extent, there’s no guarantee that would result in an uplift in record sales. We at CMU still believe that, while illegal downloading is an issue worth shouting about, it can also be a distraction, removing attention from bigger issues.
Issues like: Perhaps recorded music had been overpriced for years, and the record industry needs to adapt to new pricing structures, capitalising on the cost savings enabled by the digital age. Perhaps as big a hindrance to the growth of the legitimate digital music sector as piracy is the fact that digital start ups can’t get one blanket licence, like a new radio station can, and instead must pay large deal sweeteners to the big labels to open negotiations. And perhaps the real challenge for the wider music industry is how to redirect revenue streams other than record sales into the pot that then invests in new talent.
Of course, many people in the music industry – including some execs at BPI member record labels – know that these challenges are at least as big as the piracy issue, and some are even looking at ways to deal with these other areas. And none of this necessarily means the BPI is wrong to carry on banging on about file-sharing and the DEA.
Except sometimes I think there are some major label bosses who do genuinely believe that the DEA is their panacea: if only we could get three-strikes underway everything will be fixed. If those people do exist, well, they’re going to be very disappointed. And probably out of business.
