It is undeniable how hard the music industry has been hit
because of music piracy with the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA)
recording thousands of jobs layoffs and billions of dollars in
losses. Through Napster's easiness to share non-copyrighted songs,
the industry declared it's biggest war yet. Even though, the monster
software was ultimately defeated, the damage was pretty much done. It was sort
of an "inception": the idea was already planted in people's mind and
led the way to an uncontrollable P2P sharing on the Internet.
Putting the customer’s (the internet user) perspective aside,
since it is very obvious that people will take advantage of any opportunity
that’s favorable to them even if it is the unethical choice, how does music
artists feel about this issue? Heavy metal band Metallica has always been
pretty keen in defending their online intellectual property (first one to
actually challenge Napster when a demo of their song was release without any
consent) but others like singer Joss Stone are "down" with piracy, stating: "music is meant to be shared". So does this mean that some musicians see their work as charitable? Maybe when you’re entering the business you’d rather do anything to share your material and draw attention, but to how much extent? If you eventually change your mind, even a second later, it will be too late to be controlled.
Moreover, musicians have been forced to tour extensively
throughout the last decade and deliver exhausting performances because record
sales are regrettably too low. Maybe they’ll have to swallow hard, embrace piracy
and adopt innovative measures such as Radiohead's "pay what you want" approach in
which they perfectly accepted fans to pay nothing or pay as much money as you like for their last album 'In Rainbows'. What other sources does musicians
have to comfortably release new records? Could it be Apple's iTunes or Amazon?
The problem is that the current generation, unlike the good 'ol days, are not
that interested in buying the whole album. They are satisfied with the songs
marketed as singles or hit songs and both services allow them to purchase songs
individually. So still there is not much earning left this way either. Kid
Rock's anti-iTunes policy, and one of the few artists outside the realm of
Apple's music engine, may have some good reasons in doing so, since he might
have earned an extra $3.3 million figure by keeping his new album 'Born Free' out of the iTunes' grid and making his non-pirate fans buy the whole record.
Also, there's the issue with online streaming, using your
Internet like a radio but with the possibility to select the song that you want
to hear. From Gainsville, Florida, Grooveshark's service is a free and so far
legal streaming site with a powerful interface and a large database, where you
can find even local underground songs from distant countries (it allows its
users to upload any song into the system). Downsize? The average people who
want to listen to their favorite bands in their iPod or Zune device are unable
to download the file from Grooveshark. However, its popularity has been
increasing over time and definitely it has not been received with kind-hearted
eyes inside the music industry (legendary band Pink Floyd successfully removed
itself from the program's database after settling a dispute). As well as
torrents, Grooveshark is not directly violating copyrights so far; only their
users are because they are the ones fostering illegal copies and as long as the
program doesn't make any real profit from letting people share, there is not
much left to do to fight back.
Many countries, especially in Europe, are meticulously battling
against online pirates, passing new laws and measures in order to hinder
illegal downloading. But combating online music piracy is like combating
technology in its pure form. Nonetheless all giants can be brought down to his
knees, right Goliath? The RIAA recently won a lawsuit against popular P2P program
LimeWire, making the service to shutdown for good. So musicians, hold on, all curses
have the tendency to end.
