Label:Life

The British music industry announced Thursday that it will begin issuing legal warnings to the nation’s most prolific online song swappers—its strongest declaration yet that lawsuits are on the way.

“The message we want to put out today is that file-sharers are on notice that if they continue with their activities they risk court action,’’ said a spokesman for industry trade group British Phonograph Industry (BPI).

The music industry blames Internet file-sharing services such as Kazaa and WinMX for creating a massive black market of free songs that is contributing to declining global CD sales.

“Serial uploaders are flouting the law and they are damaging British music and the British music industry,’’ BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson said in a statement. [more @ www.news.com]

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is continuing its legal campaign against file sharing. In late March, the trade organization launched a new salvo of lawsuits against 532 individuals and 21 university computer networks across the country—89 of the accused violators used school networks for downloading or sharing large numbers of copyrighted recordings. The RIAA claimed that the alleged violators shared an average of 837 songs.

The latest move is the first time the RIAA has gone after university networks, whose administrators have generally cooperated with investigators. Schools involved include some big-name institutions such as Georgetown University, the University of Michigan, and the University of California at Berkeley.

The names of the accused weren’t available at the time the lawsuits were announced. Instead, the RIAA had only numeric Internet addresses from which it was working to establish identities. Once that process is complete, music industry attorneys will seek damages against individuals or attempt to negotiate out-of-court settlements. The March lawsuits follow similar efforts in January (532 suits) and February (531 suits). As of March 29, the RIAA has filed approximately 2000 lawsuits against copyright violators and has settled with more than 400, with settlements averaging $3000.
[more @ www.stereophile.com]

Researchers at two leading U.S. universities have issued a study countering the music industry’s central theme in its war on digital piracy by saying file sharing has little impact on CD sales.

“We find that file sharing has only had a limited effect on record sales,” Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard Business School and Koleman Strumpf of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill said in their report.

“The economic effect is also small. Even in the most pessimistic specification, five thousand downloads are needed to displace a single album sale,” they wrote.

The Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group representing the music industry, was quick to denounce the report’s conclusions.

“Countless well-respected groups and analysts, including Edison Research, Forrester, the University of Texas, among others, have all determined that illegal file sharing has adversely impacted the sales of CDs,” RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss said in a statement. [more @ www.reuters.co.uk]

File sharing has no effect on CD sales, a pair of US academics have claimed.

The finding will not make pleasant reading for the music industry, which claims file-sharing is the cause of the huge decline seen in North American, German and Italian CD sales.

Harvard Business School Associate Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Professor Koleman Strumpf of the University of North Carolina base their claim on research carried during the Autumn and Winter of 2002 to compare song download volumes with CD album sales.

The duo used data taken directly from file-sharing networks to calculate the number of genuine downloads made during a 17-week period. They also looked at official US CD sales data. Factors such as network congestion, song length – ie. download duration – as well as international school and college holidays were taking into consideration. They then used statistical methods to work out whether the sale of an album declines if it is downloaded more frequently.

The result, the professors say, is that there is no such connection.

“File sharing has no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in our sample,” their report states. “Moreover, the estimates are of rather modest size when compared to the drastic reduction in sales in the music industry. At most, file sharing can explain a tiny fraction of this decline.” [more @ www.theregister.co.uk]

A full copy of the report on how file sharing is affecting the music industry can be viewed HERE

The music industry is to take legal action against 247 online song-swappers across Europe in the biggest crackdown against music piracy outside the US.
The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has said it will pursue serious offenders across the continent through the court system.

They have been targetted for illegally distributing hundreds of music tracks using file-sharing technology.

UK music firms have already threatened court action against song-swappers.

The first wave of legal actions will affect Germany, Italy, Denmark and Canada, and will be implimented according to that country’s law. [more @ www.news.bbc.co.uk]

Franz Ferdinand have come out in defence of people downloading music.

As previously reported on NME.COM, the BPI yesterday (March 25) said that a new instant messaging campaign on the Internet will warn users when they are obtaining music illegally, as well as telling serial downloaders to disable their file-sharing software or face court action.

However, Franz singer Alex Kapranos has said downloading is “great”.

He told Rolling Stone: “Downloading is a great way to find out about music. I’m not going to criticise somebody for loving music. People come up to me and say, ‘I downloaded your album, and I can’t wait to go out and buy it’.” [more @ www.nme.com]

Blur have hit back at the BPI’s warnings to online song swappers that they may face court action if they continue to download music.

As previously reported on NME.COM, the BPI yesterday (March 25) said that a new instant messaging campaign on the Internet will warn users when they are obtaining music illegally, as well as telling serial downloaders to disable their file-sharing software or face court action.

A statement from the BPI said: “The message we want to put out today is that file-sharers are on notice that if they continue with their activities they risk court action.”

However, Blur drummer Dave Rowntree contacted NME.COM to comment on the new threats of court action against file-sharers.

He said: “It’s so difficult for artists to speak out without pointing fingers because artists make money from the sale of records and it’s seen as if we want the best of both worlds.”

“I’m certainly not saying ‘File sharing is great but I also want to make a living out of selling records’, Rowntree explained. “What I’m saying is if the BPI wanted to take a stand, then the time to take that stand was a number of years ago and do it in a kind of inclusive and grown-up way rather than now posturing and spitting like a bunch of schoolyard bullies. This will only lead to a bunch of 12 year-olds being taken to court as happened in the States which will serve nobody and nobody will make a penny.” [more @ www.nme.com]

Congress appears to be preparing assaults against peer-to-peer technology on multiple fronts.

A draft bill recently circulated among members of the House Judiciary Committee would make it much easier for the Justice Department to pursue criminal prosecutions against file sharers by lowering the burden of proof. The bill, obtained Thursday by Wired News, also would seek penalties of fines and prison time of up to 10 years for file sharing.

In addition, on Thursday, Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) introduced a bill that would allow the Justice Department to pursue civil cases against file sharers, again making it easier for law enforcement to punish people trading copyright music over peer-to-peer networks. They dubbed the bill “Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act of 2004,” or the Pirate Act.

The bills come at a time when the music and movie industries are exerting enormous pressure on all branches of government at the federal and state levels to crack down on P2P content piracy. The industries also are pushing to portray P2P networks as dens of terrorists, child pornographers and criminals—a strategy that would make it more palatable for politicians to pass laws against products that are very popular with their constituents. [more @ www.wired.com]

Music industry attempts to prosecute individual music downloaders won’t destroy piracy, but online music services may take a bite, writes The Guardian.

The criticism follows the British Phonographic Institute’s (BPI) news last week that it intends litigation against file sharers.

The music industry believes piracy is costing it money in lost sales – but the BPI release announcing its plans carried a key statistic that offers hope, according to the Guardian.

“It claims that 92 per cent of the eight million people in the UK downloading music are using illegal sites. The amazing figure is not the 92 per cent, but the 8 per cent of computer owners actually paying for tracks!

“Even though around 8 per cent of computer owners might not sound like much, it does highlight that there is a core of consumers prepared to give legitimate downloads a chance,” the report says.

The report explains that to keep honest users honest – and to provide an alternative for those already tempted by free and immediate music online, the UK needs “high-profile music download services driven by brands users trust.” [more @ www.macworld.co.uk]