Introduction

The Music Industry argues that P2P networks and general internet copyright infringement have harmed their music sales. It is agreed by every one that they have suffered a decline in sales over the last five years but the reasons for this are disputed.

Executive Summary

Arguments

Music Industry

A guide for parents about P2P, file-sharing, and the internet. By the Music Industry.

Studies

CRIA study- Appendix A of this Canadian survey published in 2006 has considerable coverage of consumer music listening, storage, and buying habits, including P2P use. The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission is a Canadian public sector organisation.
The Effect of File Sharing On Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis by K. Strumpf and F. Oberholzer (2004). This is the so-called 'Harvard Study'.

Quotes

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer "We've had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'."

Links

People

Lawrence Lessig
Ray Beckerman runs a blog devoted to the RIAA's lawsuits of intimidation brought against ordinary working people.
Janis Ian is a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter. She has written a couple of essays on artist finances and P2P: The Internet Debacle - An Alternative View and Fallout - A follow-up to The Internet Debacle

Organisations

BPI British Phonographic Industry
BSA Business Software Alliance
RIAA Recording Industry Association of America
IFPI International Federation for the Phonographic Industry

Cartoons

Flat at thirty gazillion files a day sir Response to Mitch Bainwol, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, saying "... file-trading is flat."
UserFriendly - At least digital sales are up sir

Documents

Press

2006-07-04 - Ars Technica - Study: legal music far outweighs P2P on portable music players: Author: Ken Fisher; Summary: A new study indicates that while file sharing may be down, it still constitutes a significant percentage of the music found on today's portable digital music players. Yet music downloads from legal services have eclipsed those stemming from P2P and other unauthorized sources. In fact, the study indicated that more than 70 percent of such music stems from legal sources, and that music download services are on the rise. The numbers show how far the industry has come from the days when CEOs would argue that "the most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'." If that view was dubious before, it's now outright ridiculous.

2006-07-04 - The Inquirer - Music industry sues Yahoo: Author: Nick Farrell; Summary: Search engines new target for Entertainment industry. The music industry seems to have started legal action against search engines for promoting software piracy. The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, which includes EMI, has sued the Chinese version of Yahoo, claiming that it provides links to piracy sites.

2006-06-23 - p2pnet - UK 'Don't sue p2p fans' petition: Author: Ray Beckerman; Summary: The managers of Avril Lavigne, The Streets and Elbow are amongst those who've signed an online petition organized by Flowerburger Records naming the British music industry for suing fans who use p2p networks. For British music industry read EMI (UK), Warner Music (US), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan, Germany), the Big Four Organized Music labels who jointly own the BPI, the so-called British Phonographic Industry, a clone of the RIAA, CRIA, ARIA and all the other 'trade' associations being used by the Big Four in their warped and bitter efforts to sue their own customers into buying product.

2006-06-13 - MP3.com - RIAA: P2P piracy "contained": Author: Jim Welte; Summary: As the anniversary approaches of the landmark Supreme Court ruling about file sharing, head of the music industry trade group says P2P growth is flat. Has illegal music file sharing on P2P networks been contained? Mitch Bainwol, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, says yes. "The problem has not been eliminated," he told USA Today this week. "But we believe digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business, and file-trading is flat."; Note: Most of the internet found Mitch Bainwol's comments to be laughable. UserFriendly summed it rather well with this cartoon, Flat at thirty gazillion files a day sir

2006-06-08 - Heise - Tiscali takes legal P2P streaming service off the net: Author: Craig Morris; Summary: Internet provider Tiscali has taken its peer-to-peer streaming service called "Tiscali Juke Box" off the net after just one month. The company says it was forced to take this action because the music industry was demanding that the artist search function in the Juke Box be switched off. The streaming service, which was based on the technology from US provider Mercora.com, allows users of a peer-to-peer networks to sift through the music collections of other users by genre and artist. While it is possible to stream the hits, they cannot be downloaded.

2006-05-14 - The Guardian - Hollywood in fear of a Torrent of file-sharing: Author: John Naughton; Summary: Warner Brothers announced plans to make over 200 films available for downloading. They propose to use BitTorrent to do it.

2006-03-09 - The Guardian - File sharing? It's great business: Author: Bernhard Warner; Summary: When the US Supreme Court ruled last year that two popular peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks had knowingly facilitated mass copyright infringement, digital rights advocacy groups predicted the stifling of innovation, while Hollywood moguls cheered the decision as a victory for artists and the fatal blow to piracy. How things can change in a few months.

2006-01-26 - The Guardian - Does legal action against file sharers dissuade others?: Author: Mike Anderiesz; Summary: If it does, then only marginally. The Digital Music Report 2006 from the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI, www.ifpi.org) says that activity on peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks remained largely static last year, amid a 26% increase in broadband usage globally. One notable shift: for the first time ever, more internet users in the UK and Germany legally downloaded tracks than shared them (6% v 5%)

2004-10-04 - Ars Technica - Ballmer bashes iPoders as thieves, industry looks for solutions: Author: Ken Fisher; Summary: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took quite a dig at the iPod and its users, implying that the iPod was without significant DRM protection, and that the majority of music on everyone's iPods is stolen. "We've had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'."

2003-07-09 - BBC News Online - File swappers 'buy more music'

References