Music moguls make millions marketing the here and now, and pop stars have fine-tuned the art of adaptation. Think Madonna and her countless music makeovers. So why is it that the music industry can't figure out how to market and sell to people who seek their music in small bytes?
The industry indeed is facing a serious challenge with people who illegally share copies of digital music files over the Internet, but just look at how it is responding:
- The Recording Industry Association of America has launched a campaign to "crawl" through millions of computers and sue Internet users found illegally sharing music files. The cyber-dragnet is so eager that it has even flagged legitimate users in the process. Consider the case of the Pennsylvania State University computer, which was targeted as a copyright culprit. The university's crime: sharing documents produced by astronomy professor Peter Usher, not the rhythm-and-blues performer Usher.
- U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, tried to impress his music industry friends during a hearing on copyright infringement last month by saying he favored developing technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music. Hatch, a songwriter and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, insisted that damaging computers "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights." He later called his plan a last-resort measure.
- U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, proposed legislation last week that would make it a felony to upload a single file of copyrighted material. If passed, the legislation would assume damages exceeding $2,500 for any illegal file-sharing, thus authorizing up to a five-year prison term for a first offense. The bill would allow the government to assess this extreme penalty without requiring any real proof of financial damage.
Copyrights certainly deserve legal protection, but litigation and prison terms won't stop illegal file-sharing. The courts are clogged and cumbersome, and they don't stand a chance of keeping pace with technology that mutates almost daily.
It's also not sound business practice to sue potential customers. "The legal approach or the regulatory approach, I view as fundamentally hopeless," said Koleman Strumpf, a University of North Carolina professor who has done extensive research on illegal file-sharing. "I think it's pointless and will alienate people."
Strumpf is completing a study on the impact of file-sharing on the music industry's bottom line, and his preliminary findings debunk the industry's claim that artists are starving because of the illegal trade of music files. There appears to be no correlation between illegal swapping and the decline of CD sales. Many of the files being traded aren't even readily available in the legal market - if at all.
Such results suggest that the industry should spend less time litigating and more time trying to give consumers what they want: the ability to log on and pick and choose songs. Apple Computer Inc. has already pioneered a legal program that attempts to do just that. Though Apple iTunes charges 99 cents a song and has a limited music selection, it has been so successful that Microsoft is attempting to mimic the endeavor.
"Free is still more attractive, but I think Apple put on the table a system that is feasible," said Jeffrey Matsuura, an expert on file-sharing and a University of Dayton Law School professor. "If the music industry is smart, they'll be really supportive of this. File-sharing is not going to go away."
The RIAA may be looking to the courts and to Congress, but piracy won't go away until consumers have better alternatives. In the material world of music, you'd think industry officials would know to look to the market.
