File Sharing Is Caring For The Music Industry
The London School of Economics has released an analysis of the Digital Economy Act (DEA) which challenges the legal process and the evidence which the music industry used to lobby for the anti file sharing legislation.
The DEA is a new legislation which is being introduced into law which proposes to withdraw internet access from those who habitually share files and folders of music, software and film which is currently protected by copyright. Similar laws have already been used to fine internet users thousands of pounds for sharing computer games with immediate family members and the parents of a number of adolescent music and game fans have had to pay similar amounts to copyright holders after their children downloaded products using their internet subscriptions.
The LSE Media Policy Project maintains that the DEA puts the emphasis and bias all on the side of the music industry and their method of enforcement is wrong. They also reject the music industry’s claims that falling sales are caused by file sharing.
The LSE’s Bingchun Meng says that: “The DEA has given over too much consideration to the interests of copyright owners while it ignores other stake holders such as users, internet service providers and new players from the creative industry.
“I hope a judicial review will make the government reconsider their approach to filesharing.”
The report also calls the music industry’s claims that lost sales due to file sharing are “wishful thinking” which led to the DEA being rushed through without proper examination and scrutiny.
The international music industry lobby group maintained that the industry and therefore their artists lost $40 billion in 2008 as a direct result of copyright infringement and piracy. Their wishful thinking comes from the notion that every song or album that is in circulation illegally would be a unit which was sold at full cost had it not been distributed on the black market. This interpretation of ‘black market’ also includes people burning tracks to make into compilation CDs for their friends and people using music without permission to add richness to home video on YouTube and other video sharing platforms.
The LSE maintain that the decline in ‘real’ copies of recorded music can’t be laid solely at the door of the file sharing community. Of course the LSE’s findings and observations were welcomed by those who are affected by the DEA as it lends credibility to their claims that they are doing no major harm to the industry, indeed they feel that they are acting in the interests of the industry by making some music available to all they make people want to go and buy fully packaged legitimate copies, the free copies simply act as a taster with which to hook new customers in.
Jeff Lynn, chair of the Coalition for a Digital Economy said that the DEA was heavily weighted toward corporates, a position which was given more weight by the fact that many people who were against the DEA were seen as radicals operating on the margins of society. Lynn says that this meant that politicians didn’t take them as seriously as they might.
The LSE goes along with his claims that British businesses would be harmed should the DEA be put into effect.
The report says that in order to stimulate the creative industry peer to peer technologies and its users should be encouraged, allowing them to promote innovation. They also highlight the fact that centring on suppressing the use of technology in this fashion will have the opposite of the desired effect as protecting an out of date business model will do nothing but stifle innovation in the music publishing and distribution services.
This is a guest post by Dan Cash.
Dan Cash is a technology and music fan who believes, as a writer it’s better to be plagarised than never to be published in the first place. With the power that’s now available on even very small laptops today they are perfectly positioned to become the next natural choice as high density, large volume MP3 players.