With music artists such as 'Courtney Love' and bands such as 'The Offspring' embracing the filesharing revolution as a way to reach a larger fan base, showing full support to maintain online music companies, explemplifies the undoubtable impact file-sharing is having on both music and business industries alike. The Internet and digital distribution are exciting new tools for businesses. Entirely new businesses have evolved around these tools providing them with the ability to stay up to date with new industry specific information, as Smith observes (2003, p21) content is “seamlessly integrated�? between companies claiming that “compaines are embracing the peer-to-peer appraoch…This is technology that works the way people work�?. Furthermore, digital distribution technology acts as an intermediary enabling musicians and artists to connect directly with fans in dynamic and immediate ways (Flew, 2002, p107-108), allowing greater exposure and closer connection with fans via the Internet facilitates invaluable benefits for both signed and emerging artists alike.
Sharman Networks (Vaidhyanathan 2004, 45) believes that P2P filesharing is a way for emerging stars to share their works with the world without big budgets or a big deal. The company states in their revolution "a song, video, game, idea or image can be shared, tried and bought based on how good it is."(Good & Krekelberg, 2004) However, while positive opportunities are evident, the internet poses a threat to major record labels and artists; as the urge to share does not please the large multi-million dollar firms that are the backbone for producing, distributing and marketing the world's best-known music is evident.
Despite being embraced by businesses and individuals benefitting from cost savings and information distribution, not everyone in the industry is happy. The rise of P2P technology has heightened cultural habits within consumers and led many artists and artists’ representatives to speak out against P2P programs, such as Napster, and other MP3 file trading communities with the case of MGM Vs Grokster ruling against Grokster, an advanced peer-to-peer file sharing program in 2005. Eminem (Eminem, 2000) an established music industry artist speaks out against the filesharing of music files, stating; "When I worked 9 to 5, I expected to get a pay check every week. It's the same with music; if I'm putting my heart and all my time into music, I expect to get rewarded for that. I work hard and anybody can just throw a computer up and download my music for free. Music is not just about the money. It's the thrill of going to the store; you can't wait till that artist's release date, taking the wrapper off the CD and putting the CD in to see what it sounds like. I always bought and supported the artists that I liked. If you can afford a computer, you can afford to pay for my CD."
Despite such claims however, it was widely reported that research found file sharing to have had virtually no impact on the overall sales of albums, furthermore the report implied P2P file sharing actually seemed to increase sales of some albums. At this stage, however, there is no study that proves peer to peer filesharing threatens the long-term viability of the music industry (Vaidhyanathan 2004, 43).
Eminem, (2000) Recording Industry Association of America: Quotes from the Artists, retrieved October 8, 2004 from URL: http://www.riaa.com/about/artists/quotes.asp
Flew.T, 2002 New Media - An Introduction, Oxford University Press, Australia
Good.N and Krekelberg.A, 2004 Usability and privacy: a study of KAZZA P2P Filesharing, retrieved on August 30, 2004 from URL:http://www.hpl.hp.com/shl/papers/kazza/KazzaUsability.pdf
Leuf,B. (2002) Peer to peer : collaboration and sharing over the Internet, Addison-Wesley, Boston.
Smith, S. (2003). Econtent. Wilton, 26 (7), 20-25
Vaidhyanathan,S. (2004), The Peer-to-Peer Revolution and the Future of Music in "The Anarchist in the Library - How the Clash Between Freedom and Control Is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System", Basic Books, New York
Kate Mitchell 21:15, 26 Oct 2005 (EST)
