Recently (Nov 2006) we had a takedown notice from
the CRIA which included the following:
The unauthorized copies of our members
sound
recordings that are available on the site hosted by your server causes
irreparable damage to the record companies and their recording artists.
This seemed such an outrageous claim that I looked for evidence to support it.
However, all the online sources that I found claimed the effect was minimal.
Does file sharing reduce
music CD sales? Tatsuo Tanaka, 2004 Conference on IT Innovation, Tokyo
..we found that there was very little evidence that file sharing reduces music
CD sales in Japan
Are Music Recording Contracts Equitable? MEIEA Journal Vol 4 No 1, Papadopoulos, Theo (2004).
Studies suggest that the artist currently receives a very small share of
industry revenue; however, the industry also functions as an incubator for new
talent, most of which will never recoup the investment, so that successful
artists are subsidising unsuccessful and upcoming ones.
artist 5%
mechanical 6%
manufacture 3%
tax 11%
retailer 28%
record company 47%
Figures from Dwyer, P. "Legal Aspects of Doing a Record Deal",
International Music Industry Conference Proceedings, Victoria University, Australia, 1998:
Some personal comments:
Currently, I don't personally buy (or download, borrow or otherwise obtain)
much music, period. As a teenager I was more enthusiatic, and spent a significant
fraction of my allowance on audio equipment and music, some of which I taped
from friends (and in many cases, have since bought CD copies).
I imagine this is a common situation for teens - they have a fixed allowance,
much of which they spend on music. The record industry would have us believe
that if a teen downloads 1000 songs a month that that represents $1000 in
lost revenue. This is clearly nonsense - it represents perhaps $50 in
lost revenue - the maximum amount that the teen would have spent on buying
physical recordings. (Not $0, admittedly).
It is possible that music sharing may help sales; I probably would not have
bought all the vinyl albums and CDs that I did if I had not previously borrowed
them. I certainly would not have rented, then bought, the Kill Bill DVDs if I
had not seen a copy that a hacker had left on a computer.
Notes on Legal Downloads
Having recently bought an RCA MP3 player as a gift, I had a look for
legal download sites.
eMusic, promoted by RCA, seems
to offer MP3s of mainly older artists - I suspect those whose works were
widely avalable on Napster P2P. eMusic runs by monthly subscription with a
"free tracks" signup bonus.
iTunes appears to work
only with proprietary software unavailable on Linux.
However, iTunes Plus will download DRM-free MP3s.
Napster only works on XP and Win2000
(no Mac, Linux or Win9x). Some features only available in the US.
Rogers Bonfire works
only on Win98SE - XP (no Linux or Mac)
PureTracks offers WMA downloads
per-track. The teaser track is a straight download that plays in Mplayer,
but the sample tracks use an embed tag that requires a browser plugin - though
the streaming URL can be teased out of the page source with a bit of effort.
The downloaded tracks, though, use Microsoft's DRM mechanism. This means
that they won't play in Mplayer, or on older MP3 players that don't have
DRM, even if they play WMA. They have to be manipulated in a recent version of
Windows Media Player, which is able to upload keys directly to recent MP3/WMA players.
(Note that it requres Internet access to validate the key).
There is a program around called "FU4WM" which is able to get keys from
Windows Media Player and decrypt the WMA file. Then you can play purchased
tracks in an older WMA player, or convert to WAV in Mplayer and thence to
MP3, re-inserting the metadata with e.g. mp3info. Probably easier to
buy a new player, but you are still stuck having to find a Windows
PC to upload the keys.
(There's no reason, IMO, why DRM software can't be made available for
non-Windows platforms. I don't know the details, but if it is properly
written using PKI even open-sourcing it like SSL/TLS wouldn't make
it crackable. Leaving it closed only encourages people to hack it
to recover their fair-use rights.)
Rhapsody (Real) is only available in the US, though it says it works on Linux
Yahoo Music says it only works on Xp, and
not on iPods
A current Google high-scorer for "music download sale",
MyMusic Inc plus redirect domains, appears to be in the list of Rogue P2P sites.
I.e. you are not really paying for the music at all - it is still
copyright-infringing - and you probably get a spyware-infested P2P client.
Akuma uses watermarking on MP3
rather than DRM. The site is in German and the sample downloads appear
to use Flash - won't play for me.
AOL Music is only avaliable in the US. Samples require
recent Firefox, ActiveX plugin, recent Flash etc. I couldn't get it to work on an older
Win2000 laptop, either.
Magnatune offers a limited selection of albums
in various formats (MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, AAC) at below-recordstore prices, paying artists directly
(I may have got this wrong; check the site)
Umusic.ca offers artist info, videos etc.. Downloads link to
iTunes or Puretracks.
Amazon MP3 - only for US customers, only for Windows and Mac
How to pay, anyway?
Most of these music-selling sites require payment by credit card.
It seems that you can't get a credit card in BC (Canada) until you are 19.
No PayPal, for instance - which you can feed from a bank account. So even
if a teen wanted to pay for legal downloads, they can't. P2P is way easier.
Opinions expressed above are my personal ones, not an official position of
TRIUMF or any other organization. Facts as stated are believe to be true.