Newsbytes Long-Time File-Swappers Buy More Music, Not Less - Jupiter

"Contrary to charges that Internet song-swapping is killing the music industry, new Jupiter Media Metrix research contends that experienced online song-swappers are more likely to buy new albums than average music fans, not less."

Kuro5hin A View of Filesharing From the Other Side

"Media giant (and MPAA and RIAA member) Viant conducted an extensively detailed study [PDF] of filesharing last year. It's an excellent analysis of the current state of various types of filesharing systems as well as an overview of the legal and technical issues surrounding each."

redux [04.17.02]
SFGate New musical acts get lift from Internet

""Our data show that the dominance of a few music superstars is decreasing, and their hold on music sales is slipping," said Sudip Bhattacharjee of the University of Connecticut's School of Business. "This is definitely good news for up-and-coming artists and groups, who now have a better chance at chart success because of (new) technologies" such as programs that allow users to download songs for free from the Internet."

""Superstars just don't have the sustaining power they used to," said Gopal, who headed the research team. "They get knocked off by new artists who get sampled over the Internet.""

The New York Times Music Services Aren't Napster, but the Industry Still Cries Foul
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"The record industry's legal victory over Napster last year has neither stopped the trading of free music online nor halted a slide in music sales."

"Underscoring the industry's woes, a survey released today by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, an international record industry trade group, found that revenue from global music sales fell 5 percent in 2001, to $33.7 billion."

redux [03.18.01]
BBC Discord over digital music

""The sense of music needing to be tied to a physical artefact, whether that be a CD or a cassette, is coming to an end," explains Simon Hopkins, head of BBC Music Online."

""The minute music went virtual in the 1990s, when it was available as ones and zeros over the internet, music was no longer a fixed commodity, no longer something the artist handed over to the audience," he says."

The New York Times Magazine Where Music Will Be Coming From
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"Technology is changing music. But then again, it always has. The invention of the piano 300 years ago centered Western music on the keyboard. Electricity's arrival in the late 19th century enabled the duplication of performances and, later, the amplification of instruments. With digitization, the pace of upheaval has further accelerated. Digital file-sharing technologies -- Napster and its offspring -- are now undermining the established economics of music. And everything we know about digital technologies suggests that Napster is only the beginning."

Matt Haughey The future of music

"Everyone with a computer I know uses them, rips them from their CDs, and shares them with others. Napster (and later on, Kazaa) built massive worldwide networks based on the sharing of these files, spreading terabytes of files to millions of users. And yet, you can't walk into a store anywhere in America and buy a physical form of media embedded with mp3s."

"Given the ubiquity of mp3s among consumers, the continued rise in popularity of the format despite anything that's been put in place to stop them, and the millions of dollars being spent on mp3 encoding/decoding software and hardware, I no longer think the RIAA operates solely on fear. At this point, they're simply running on stupidity."

redux [12.18.01]
Salon Don't steal music, pretty please

"Indeed, the pointless attempt to control copyrighted data every step of the way from musician's voice to listener's ear is the biggest roadblock to success for online music. Just as HBO doesn't try to stop you from taping its movies, so music sellers need to let go and trust their customers. Remove the incentives for people to steal, rather than imposing more technology that treats customers as would-be shoplifters. Even former BMG head Strauss Zelnick, who says he has no problem throwing big-time bootleggers in jail, agrees the industry's challenge is to come up with an attractive alternative to Aimster and its ilk. "We need to give consumers a service they want, at a price they're willing to pay," he told me in an interview this summer. "People don't like to think of themselves as criminals." But ironically, the more anti-theft hurdles crammed into the legal products, the more attractive the pirate alternatives become."

redux [12.11.01]
NPR: All Things Considered Internet Music Services

"The major record labels have rolled out their much-anticipated subscription music services -- the ones that are supposed to be legitimate alternatives to the free file sharing services spawned by Napster. MusicNet went online last week. Details of the upcoming PressPlay service were officially unveiled today. But they come at a moment when more people than ever -- even more than in Napster's heyday -- are using FREE services."

redux [07.24.01]
Wired News What If Napster Was the Answer?

""In some respects, this brings the labels back to square one," Mooradian said.

One label executive agreed, saying, "I fear we're getting into a game of whack-a-mole, where we sue Napster, then we sue Aimster and so on and so on."

"If (the labels) killed Napster -- and that's 'if,'" said Johnny Deep, CEO of Aimster, "they killed their only chance of a viable online strategy. Napster was easy enough to use, and there was loyalty and confidence in the brand. That's something the labels can't recreate, even if they spend a hundred million.""

Salon Revenge of the file-sharing masses!

"It didn't have to be this way, of course. The music industry has had the opportunity for several years now to begin offering reasonably priced access to comprehensive catalogs of digital music across the Internet, sweetened with special premium additions for fans willing to pay even more. Such a service could satisfy the hunger of millions of people for ready access to new and old music while preserving a reasonable income for the artists who make that music. Fear has stayed the industry's hand -- fear that today's unconscionably high CD prices can't be sustained; fear that the many layers of middlemen in today's industry might find themselves out of jobs; fear that the superstar system couldn't survive such a change; fear of the unknown.

The industry's paralysis is a tragedy for anyone who believes that artists should be compensated for their work as well as for anyone who loves music, period. But it's clear that the record labels would rather sue than find a sensible rapprochement with the new world of digital distribution."

redux [05.02.00]
Infoworld Napster sends a message to music industry: 'Your customers aren't happy'

""The Recording Industry Association of America wants to educate consumers with the message, "Artists deserve to be compensated -- artists won't make music if they can't make money." I can only imagine the public service announcements with multimillionaire artists pleading for their right to a seventh Porsche in the driveway.

There's no rationalization for piracy; it is what it is. However, rampant music piracy online indicates that the music industry's distribution and pricing model is out of whack with what people want. The problem isn't the piracy; the problem is unhappy customers.

And the music industry had better do something about it. This is a dinosaur moment -- with the big rock looming overhead -- where the music industry needs to ask itself how it will adapt."