The Future for Artists
The Past and Now
Since Napster entered the online world in 1999, the entertainment industry has been running scared of such applications claiming they take artists revenue and cause cd sales to go down. Studies have shown that CD sales in the US started to decline in 1998, one year before Napster was even on the scene.
The five major record labels -- Sony Music, AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music Group, EMI Group Plc, Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group, Bertelsmann AG's BMG Entertainment -- and other companies are trying to trying to win users over to subscription-based services. But none have reached the mass appeal enjoyed by the unauthorized services. (www.gnutellanews.com)
In 2000 the record industry in the US saw a fall in profits received from the top ten from $60 million to $34 million and claims that this is 'not a victimless crime. People are really suffering from the impact of peer to peer software applications.' (www.sfgate.com)
The Future.
Many artists are currently making money off the internet and are not suing the users of downloading applications. These artists include Alanis Morisette, Beastie Boys, Michael Franti, Pearl Jam and David Bowie. (www.eff.org)
The way for the entertainment industry to defeat illegal music distribution services is to offer comprehensive, innovative, fairly priced legal services and until the record companies offer their content ubiquitously in a consumer friendly way the illegal applications will continue to win.
The entertainment industry needs to realise that suing fans of their music, movie or book is not the answer to beating peer to peer applications.
The entertainment industry need to embrace these applications and arrive at innovative target to use the applications to benefit all parties.
REFERENCES
Gnutella. (2004) 'CD sales Down' Available: http://www.gnutellanews.com/article/5340. [Accessed October 26 2004]
The San Fransisco Chronicle. (2003) RIAA decries drop in CD sales. Available: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/09/03/BU249534.DTL&type=tech. [Accessed 26 October 20040
Louise Connors 23:52, 28 Oct 2004 (EST)
