[Dixielandjazz] A familiar subject

[Bill Haesler]

Dear friends,
The following is from today's Sydney Morning Herald.
We music 'specialists' are well aware of the argument, but it seems that the
record companies do not get it - yet.
The author, Australian Dan Stapleton, is a lone, but sane, public voice.
A perceptive insider, who has been pushing this message for some time.
Kind regards,
Bill. 
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'Big record labels out of sync in taking music downloaders to court.'
April 27, 2005

Better songs mean better sales, no matter what the means of distribution,
writes Dan Stapleton.

A group of English parents received a nasty shock recently. Their children
had been downloading the latest chart hits from the internet illegally, and
the British Phonographic Industry (Britain's equivalent of the Australia
Recording Industry Association) wasn't happy. The parents fended off
lawsuits by settling with the industry for about £2000 ($4900) each.

A spokesman for the organisation said the court cases were intended to act
as a deterrent to the millions of others in Britain who download music from
the net via Napster-esque person-to-person networks, which enable people to
share computer files. The Recording Industry Association of America and
major record labels have already filed several thousand similar lawsuits in
the United States.

Recording industry groups and record labels regularly sue those who create
and run these networks, reacting to the phenomenon of file-swapping, which
first gained popularity in 1999 with the Napster computer program. Tens of
millions of songs are shared in this way every day.

The labels are frightened that they will lose money because people will stop
buying CDs, and their decline in profits seems to back up their concerns.
But so far, all their legal dollars have failed to curb the trend of
file-sharing.

I am an active proponent of music sharing. I feel little sympathy for
corporations that spend much of their money marketing the musical equivalent
of McDonald's food.

Like many, I watched in horror as dozens of medium-sized record labels -
including Island, Creation and Vagrant - were bought up in the consolidation
of the 1990s, with the ideal of music as a valuable art form getting lost in
bureaucracy.

I probably won't play popular mp3 songs much. Instead, I'll be listening to
music by obscure bands I never would have discovered without the internet -
bands that have reached far more people than they could have if Napster had
not been developed. Almost all of the bands I listen to, and the smaller
record labels that release their music, see person-to-person networks as
good things.

Unlike the major labels, their business has boomed since the internet has
given them a free, global distribution platform, putting them on a level
playing ground with the majors. They often freely distribute mp3s through
their websites, to get listeners familiar with their music. And they don't
lecture their fans about the evils of computers.

In turn, listeners respect and support the artists.

Every year, the major labels wait for global CD sales figures to be counted,
anxiously anticipating a decline that will justify their crusade against
person-to-person networks.

ARIA figures for last year show a mere 4 per cent decline in sales - hardly
a crushing blow. In fact, when sales of music-related DVDs (containing live
concerts, music videos and bonus audio CDs) are factored in, Australians are
actually spending more.

Despite this, major labels are posting stagnant or declining profits. The
reason?

Not because less music is being sold, but because listeners are tired of
paying for uninspired songs, preferring to buy music by bands with the
smaller labels.

If the majors wish to revive their profits by taking legal action, they face
a tough challenge.

Suing the estimated 100 million people who use person-to-person sites every
day is hardly practical. And their lawsuits against the makers of P2P
programs (including the most popular, Kazaa, which is the subject of a
lengthy lawsuit in Australia with a decision due soon) have met with mixed
results.

If past cases are anything to go by, suing file-sharers and the makers of
P2P software won't even be a serious option in a few years' time.

In 1988 Britain's High Court ruled in favour of Amstrad Electronics, an
early maker of dual-cassette stereos capable of copying tapes, which was
sued by CBS for enabling people to duplicate copyright material. Then
Universal Studios sued Sony for making VCRs that allowed consumers to tape
programs and watch them later.

These cases were heard at times when new means of media duplication
(recordable cassette decks, VCRs) were entering the mainstream, much as P2P
networks are now. In both cases, the judges ruled that the plaintiffs were
not responsible for what people did with their products after they were
sold.

So it seems unlikely that the major labels will make much headway in
courtrooms. Instead, they need to face the reality that their product - and
the means of delivering it - needs to change. Instead of ignoring the
internet and hoping it will go away, they need to harness its power to reach
consumers and get them excited about good music again.

They're slowly cottoning on. Services like Apple's iTunes, which allows
consumers to download millions of songs legally for US99 cents ($1.27) a
pop, have been successful, and revenue from them is now greater than revenue
for CD singles in Britain.

But no matter how well they develop means of online revenue, the reality
remains that to continue selling millions of CDs, they need to release music
that's actually worth listening to.

*Dan Stapleton is a freelance journalist who has written about the music
industry in Rolling Stone and The Drum Media.
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