Recording Industry v. Music THIEVES

Implications: Music pirates are thieves; plain and simple There are artists who are cheated out of money they are rightfully entitled to. Too often, the thieves condone their actions by saying that the real villain is the music company.  WRONG.  The real villains are the music thieves. For every song copied and emailed to a friend it is some amount of royalty money the actual artist is cheated out of.

Analysis: I understand the need to feel as if you can best a big bad corporate giant.  I understand that the corporate giant can be a very bad corporate citizen.  However, music piracy is not about you saving a couple of dollars on a song by downloading for free.  Music piracy hurts the singer, the musician, lyricist, and composer who made that piece of music.

Pirates are taking money out of the hands of the very people who created the content.

The case in Arizona is very unusual.  The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed a suit against a man named Jeffrey Howell, who kept about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer.  The RIAA says it is illegal for someone who has legally bought a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

Let us think about what the RIAA is saying.  Thanks to the computer and Internet today, it is easy to download and transfer a song to thousands of people in seconds.  Before the Internet people would record their favorite songs on a tape recorder.  The RIAA had no problems with people copying songs on a tape recorder and playing those songs for personal (and non-commercial) use because illegally transferring the song was very difficulty.  Further unless you had a professional studio recording the music the chances are your discount store bought tape recorder would produce a low quality recording of the song.  Hence, there was little danger of massive profit erosions from personal tape recordings.

However, today, with computers and personal recording devices being so accurate in the way they duplicate a song or a piece of music, the artist will suddenly sell fewer copies of their song is being duplicated accurately and is their song is being emailed half-way round the world in seconds.  The Internet, recording software, and computer recording capabilities are so advanced that music industry profits are suffering.  Can you blame musicians being mad as heck?

The lawsuit is a desperate attempt by the industry but one that had to be made.

Artists deserved to be compensated.

When investment banks and venture capitalists finance companies that encourage music piracy, then they are stealing as well.

Here is a novel idea.  The first online company to take serious measures via digital rights management to stop piracy will be the hit of the music industry and may be able to sign exclusive deals with artists.

The challenge is to realistically create rules that enable users to download (paid downloads) music without being charged for piracy.  The music industry needs to survive.  Users need to be able to use their computers.

The lawsuit was necessary in order to shine a light on the plight of the music industry and its members.

More needs to be done in the area of digital rights management and anti-piracy efforts.  The entire mobile web and online business is in jeopardy.

The issues are complex and require a careful yet aggressive approach to resolving.