Slashdot Mirror

Not quite; the IFPI read the paper and said (in a press release) that it was "flawed, misleading and disconnected from commercial reality."

I think it's one of those classic "we're going to accuse everyone we disagree with of being what we are" tactics. I had a skim through their justifications for that statement and, based on what I remember of the other papers they referred to, they aren't being 100% honest or accurate either.

It's actually, like, 32. But yeah.

I believe it's this PDF.

Only halved? I thought these things were supposed to have a 70% reduction according to the earlier surveys. Oh wait, those surveys are complete rubbish, as is most data on this sort of thing. The surveys for how much this sort of thing would reduce filesharing are all over the place; according to the IFPI, the French version, Hadopi, would cause 71% reduction in unlawful file-sharing, whereas a ZdNet.fr survey put it at 4%. Then there was a really fun Hollywood-sponsored survey from Australia that found 74% would stop infringing - unfortunately, in the fine detail, it turned out only 11% were actually committing copyright infringement on a regular basis, so at least 15% of people don't infringe regularly, but wouldn't stop even if threatened by their ISP.

This is definitely one of those "detailed-study-complete-with-full-figures-and-methodology or it didn't happen" situations.

However, it is interesting to see that the RIANZ are claiming that half isn't enough, and that more needs to be done. It mirrors my concerns about these laws elsewhere (particularly in the UK, obviously) that they have no criteria for success or failure, nor any real way to measure effectiveness. It means that once implemented the RIAA/Rianz/BPI are free to say "This is working, so we need more!" or "This isn't working, so we need more!" or "We're not sure whether or not this is working, so we need more!" no matter what actually happens, and we're back to copyright enforcement for the sake of copyright enforcement.

Fortunately in the EU these sorts of charges to ISPs were declared unlawful, so copyright owners are being forced to meet most of the bill for the UK three-strikes program (although subscribers will have to pay an arbitrary £20 to appeal allegations made against them).

The one good thing about the UK version, though, is that the government were persuaded that, once the three-strikes law is in force, someone should actually look into whether or not such a law is needed or will do any good, so in a year or so, after over 1m letters being sent (and however many lawsuits and prosecutions), we may actually get some independent and reliable data on this whole "online infringement of copyright" thing.

[Disclaimer: I 'work' as a lobbyist in this area and am currently in the middle of consultation work on the UK version of this sort of thing - so I'm rather biased. For anyone in the UK interested in this, the Ofcom consultation is available here and closes on Thursday.]

It appears to boost...

• Anime DVD sales
• Sales of songs and albums online, as well as music subscriptions
• (and fewer physical CDs, but this was supposed to be a report about online sales).

  There's also evidence to suggest that piracy can really help the little guy :

  Piracy trumps obscurity .. so it's not all black and white. These were all picked off the first page of a search for "piracy boosts sales", so your Google-fu is indeed weak.. or your heart just isn't in it

  It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
    Upton Sinclair US novelist & socialist politician (1878 - 1968)

The UK for all it's faults at very least hasn't got anything as bad as France's HADOPI yet, hasn't had anywhere near as bad web blocking orders as in Ireland or the Netherlands, and doesn't at least have as close to the amount of censorship as Germany. Oh, and Sweden is basically a wholly owned subsidiary of the RIAA now.

I'm so glad that the Digital Economy Act and s97A CDPA 1988 were figments of my imagination. I'm glad that the London police aren't extra-judicially working with the IFPI to block payments to sites they don't like, and aren't pushing Nominet into letting them seize domain names based on a mere accusation. On top of that, I'm glad the UK doesn't criminalise people for making harmless jokes on Twitter or for insulting people. While headscarves aren't illegal, the Police can remove and seize anything they think might be being used as a disguise. On the topic of censorship, the UK recently made it potentially illegal to draw stick-figure porn of overage people.

I suppose you can complain about our big brother state but really the reason we have a reputation in that respect is precisely because our population actually stands up and shouts about how unhappy we are with it, which is surely better than most other European states where it's at least as bad but just blindly accepted without much dissent.

The UK has the occasional protest, where people wander through the streets, accompanied by the police, a few of whom get arrested (for the wonderfully-vague "breach of the peace") and everyone goes home happy that nothing will change. Unlike peaceful places like Greece or France.

It's thanks to the fact we do have organisations like Liberty that these things are exposed for what they are attempts at but most the worst stuff our last government proposed that generated all said stories is dead now, the ID card database is gone, many CCTV programmes have been cut/scaled back, libel laws are being reformed.

ID cards went because they were expensive and ineffective (and no one wanted them)... although the database seems to still be around, although mainly used for foreigners. The DNA database is still up and running, despite being declared illegal, most of the "anti-terrorism" legislation New Labour introduced is still on the books aside from the bits the courts struck down (although they're mostly still on the books, just not being applied), including the various 'unreasonable stop-and-search' powers, and while libel-reform is in the works, and has some vague government backing, only last week the responsible minister pointed out to a meeting of the libelreform campaign that there's no guarantee it will happen any time soon. CCTV was never that big an issue (it was vastly exaggerated in the media), so I'll give you that one. Oh, and the UK also imprisons people for not disclosing passwords.

The UK's blasphemy law

Yeah he checked his bank book and thought "the copyright law is broken"

"The digital music business internationally saw a sixth year of expansion in 2008, growing by an estimated 25 per cent to US$3.7 billion in trade value. Digital platforms now account for around 20 per cent of recorded music sales, up from 15 per cent in 2007. Recorded music is at the forefront of the online and mobile revolution, generating more revenue in percentage terms through digital platforms than the newspaper (4%), magazine (1%) and film industries (4%) combined. "

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_resources/dmr2009.html

How would I squeeze every last cent out of a clients art/music? Oh I wouldn't I'm a human.

The first does not exist. The "Recording Industry Association of Jamaica Limited" uses the acronym "RIAJam" according to their website. Hope that clarifies things for you.

To save time see http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_links/national_associations.html

There you will find that the Argentines has "CAPIF - Cámara Argentina de Productores de Fonogramas y Videogramas". And before you get excited, neither Australia nor Austria's groups are "RIAA" either.

2. Gold and Platinum records - as sales have declined, the number of copies needed to score a gold or platinum has been repeatedly changed so the studios can brag (maybe to their stockholders, since these figures invariably get quoted in the stock prospectus) that they are getting more platinum sales than ever, even though the actual sales numbers are down.

Not sure what you are basing this on, as the only thing that has ever changed about gold and platinum record numbers are they went from value of retail sales sold to number of actual records sold. The number required as of 2009 is still 500,000 for gold and 1,000,000 for platinum - which have been the same since the 60s. (The numbers may be slightly different for other countries, but I am assuming we are talking about the US rules as the RIAA is based in the US.) See here or here for my sources.

Why don't we all stop bitching about it on slashdot and try bitching about it to one of these offices instead?

What makes an artist work more valuable than mine ?

Your work is probably not used by corporate oligopolists (such as those http://www.ifpi.org/) to accumulate a load of wealth wich is then used to corrupt people such as this Andy Burnham into fucking the population who appointed him to defend and promote culture...

In France, using encryption has long been illegal. I believe even SSL connections weren't allowed until the law changed in 1999.
So I wouldn't call this "stretching credibility", it's just on par for the course in that country where the government clearly doesn't have a clue about IT.

Worse, they're learning about IT - from the media mafia. For example, a year ago there were voices calling out for a complete internet ban for whoever is caught sharing a file, enforcing ISP's to act as police, attorney, jury and judge. Who came up with that idea? The IFPI. Who fell for it? The government.

I thought I had read this before so I did a search and came up with this: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/2/103735/275 This post was made in 2003 (and references a previous post on Slashdot, so it could easily be older than that.) You are simply reposting a 5 year old story word for word. I somehow doubt that you are the original author (which would, ironically, make that post copyright infringement ;-) ).

That said, there are a couple of big holes in this story.

Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame.

The author admits to not knowing why people aren't buying CDs, but then immediately jumps to the "inescapable truth" that Internet piracy is to blame. It isn't because the selection isn't to the buying public's taste, or because a Walmart opened down the block with better prices, or because people were buying more DVDs/video games/etc. Nope, it *had* to be Internet Piracy! And why?

The statistics speak for themselves - one in three discs world wide is a pirate.

Not to overuse a XKCD meme, but: Citation Needed. So I did a Google search and came up with this article: http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20050623.html

Ok, the article is 3 years old, but let's let that slide for a bit. The piracy that the article speaks of is commercial CD pressing. You know, the folks who obtain one CD, burn a hundred copies, and sell them on the street corner for $1.50 each. That is a completely different form of piracy than the guy who clicks "share this folder" in LimeWire/Kazaa/etc.

On The Internet, you can find and download hundreds of dollars worth of music in just minutes. It has the potential to destroy the music industry, from artists, to record companies to stores like my own.

Yes, the Internet does make piracy (of the P2P sharing kind) easier than it used to be. It does also have the potential to destroy the music industry as we know it now. However, many new technologies are disruptive events. The industry either has to adapt or die. When cars first came out, it was disruptive to the people in the Horse and Buggy Industry. We don't hold technology back simply because one industry doesn't want to change how they operate. For an example of how the music industry might adapt, look to eMusic and Amiee Street. As far as local record stores go, they either find a way to adapt (perhaps kiosks selling personal mix CDs) or they die out. It's just a fact of business life.

Before you point to the supposed "economic downturn", I'll note that the book store just across from my store is doing great business. Unlike CDs, it's harder to copy books over The Internet.

In the years since this post was originally written, advances in book piracy have been made.

As for the National Register of Pirates idea, it is quite obviously a bad idea. The original poster of this seemed to be of the opinion that the courts were taking too long so pirates should just be added to a list without a trial. Let's put aside the question of how the RIAA would get the pirates' identities and how it would be enforced for a moment. (Big questions, mind you, but let's assume some process gets put into place.) How will the list be kept focused on pirates and kept clean of the falsely accused? We have only to look at the No Fly List for an example of how a blacklist with no oversight or clear removal process can wind up triggering many false positives. If some other Jason Levine pir

"the current UK government is run by people who are terrified that US companies will withdraw from the UK "

Well lets see, of the 4 big music studios (listed in order of global sales from 2005 http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20050802.html), you have:
Universal: French
SONY BMG: Japanese / German
EMI: British
Warner: USA

So of the four, only the fouth biggest is even a "US controlled" company. I also very much doubt Warner (as with any company) "wants" to withdraw from the UK. That makes precisely no sense what-so-ever; they are after money for shareholders, not some sort of nationalistic bragging competition (which is all completely meaningless in reality anyway).

I do hate this kind of analysis though because in reality they are all "mutli-nationals", with shares being constantly bought and sold by stakeholders from all over the world. Universal for example is owned by "French" conglomerate Vivendi but laregly headquatered in the USA, but also comprises of the PolyGram studio which is/was German.

Actually, the correct link is http://www.ifpi.org/ -- did you not see the dozen or so stories about The Pirate Bay receving ifpi.com as a donation?

But the result of that competitive edge might be more market share of an overall smaller market, and thus not necessarily more sales or profits.

The ifpi news release is labeled "Music piracy - ten inconvenient truths"
http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20070531. html

Either it has been relabeled or the discussion of file sharing was not directly addressed in the title.

That being said, it reads more like an opinion/rant rather than any piece of truth.

Pirate Bay, one of the flagships of the anti-copyright movement, makes thousands of euros from advertising on its site, while maintaining its anti-establishment "free music" rhetoric.
If it is so profitable, why can't the music industry put up an ad-supported free download site?

AllOfMP3.com, the well-known Russian web site, has not been licensed by a single IFPI member, has been disowned by right holder groups worldwide and is facing criminal proceedings in Russia.

Organized criminal gangs and even terrorist groups use the sale of counterfeit CDs to raise revenue and launder money.
And Phil Spector may have used his legitimate music money to purchase a weapon that he allegedly used to shoot Lana Clarkson

Illegal file-sharers don't care whether the copyright-infringing work they distribute is from a major or independent label.
According to the last item in the list they actually do care, expressing a preference for major labels. But psychoanalysis of their motivations can hardly be called "truth"

Reduced revenues for record companies mean less money available to take a risk on "underground" artists and more inclination to invest in "bankers" like American Idol stars.
How dare they make such a mean-spirited threat
Guess we'll have to look underground for our underground music.

ISPs often advertise music as a benefit of signing up to their service, but facilitate the illegal swapping on copyright infringing music on a grand scale.
Which ISPs? Will their helpdesk help me set up my p2p program so I can download some tunes?

The anti-copyright movement does not create jobs, exports, tax revenues and economic growth-it largely consists of people pontificating on a commercial world about which they know little.
Pontificating is actually big business these days. Bloggers, politicians, talking heads all do it.
However, this hardly counts as a truth. As mentioned elsewhere, it is more of a whine, or a rant.

Piracy is not caused by poverty. Professor Zhang of Nanjing University found the Chinese citizens who bought pirate products were mainly middle- or higher-income earners.
Important to understand this. Among poor people who don't own computers or cd players, there was a surpisingly low amount of file sharing or purchasing of pirate CDs. Go figure.

Most people know it is wrong to file-share copyright infringing material but won't stop till the law makes them, according to a recent study by the Australian anti-piracy group MIPI.
Most people have this idea that it might be wrong because of the paid ad campaigns but they don't really feel it is wrong or they would have stopped by now.

P2P networks are not hotbeds for discovering new music. It is popular music that is illegally file-shared most frequently.
If unpopular music were traded most frequently would it still be unpopular? or would it then be popular? I've just gone cross-eyed.

Check this one out:

http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/antipiracy/digita l-file-check.html.

It's a program that 'allows the user to delete copyrighted music and video files from the "shared folders"'. How helpful. Also, it locks p2p programs with a password. Nice.

Supposedly, it doesn't phone home, but you just have to wonder...

I am not really disturbed at how far the US is willing to go to pressure other countries to change their laws to protect US interests, that's what sovereign states do. What disturbs me is that our current government thinks that *this* interest is worth so much diplomatic capital.

The global music market is only worth $32 billion. That's chicken feed really. Even assuming that US companies were making 100% of that revenue (they aren't) and that AllOfMP3.com could eliminate 100% of that revenue, it *still* isn't worth playing this kind of hardball. I'll bet EU restrictions on GM food cost US companies more money than that (please note, I am not advocating hard ball tactics over EU GM food restrictions).

What's the RIxx group over the big pond?

IFPI, I believe. Locally in Norway we have TONO as well.

Copyright is the means by which a person or a business makes a living from creativity.

not today. Today copyright is how businesses steal 'ownership' from artists.

Copyright also protects culture ...

bullsh*t. Copyright puts culture under the lock and key of a corporation for their own profit, not for the protection of the culture. There's plenty of culture that is currently unavailable to us because the 'owner' doesn't see a profit. how exactly is that 'protecting' it in any good way?

...and fosters artistic integrity.

right. that's why when an artist is signed to a label who owns them and their work they always remain true to their roots and never produce works as they are told to. sure.

This gives talented people the incentive to create great works...

Firstly, there is absolutely no evidence that without copyright 'great works' would not be created, in fact shakespear worked without the benefit of copyright, and has arguably created some of the greatest works of all time. Secondly; talented, creative people can no more not-create than they can not-breathe. It's in their blood. It consumes them. It drives them. They require no outside incentive.
And if it's all about incentive, how does retroactively extending copyright (Sonny Bono Copyright act) increase their incentive? It's already made! no further 'incentive' is necessary... Clearly it's about money, not creativity.

Copyright has underpinned an extraordinary modern economic success story, accounting for tens of millions of jobs worldwide.

There's two possibilities here: Either copyright has created the correct number of jobs (i.e. the same as without) or copyright has created an innefficient system where the consumer is paying too much (in order to pay for the bloat, i.e. the *extra* jobs created)
If it's the first case, than copyright has done nothing, and is irrelevent. If it's the second, than we have done ourselves and economic disservice...

The dramatic growth of the artistic, cultural and other creative industries in today's major economies would have been impossible without the strong levels of copyright protection that those countries have developed over many decades.

Proof please.
Again, there is absolutely no evidence that copyright has in any way increased the quantity of artisitic creativity anywhere. What there is, is proof that creativity happens without copyright, and there is proof that copyright generates monopoly profits for corporations who become larger and more powerful and demand tighter copyright controls for their own profits.
I'm going to postulate that the real reason that there is more recorded art today is for a few other reasons:

• Increased leisure time for the masses (increases both the time for people to create and consume art)
• Increased ease of access (thanks to recordings, and modern transportation, including the steam engine, internal combustion engine, the airplane and last (but not leastly) digital media and digital transports),
• Decreased creation costs. Joe six-pack can have a semi-professional recording studio in his basement, write a book and self publish etc etc. i.e. The production costs have dropped to really really cheap

I would argue that the creative work that will have the most impact on society this century will have been created largely by people who will never be monetarily compensated, will be consumed by people who will never even say thanks, and yet will continue to evolve, to be worked on and yes to be monetized. That creative work is known as GNU/Linux, but comprises a larger scope of work that can also be called Open Source, or Free Software.

So all we really do get

both are merely fronts for the interests of their umbrella group

Progress against any of them is progress against all of them. With any luck, a sufficient defeat in Canada will allow Canada to get a foothold in the world music industry for the near future as the old guard is defeated in a long series of battles.

If the U.S. Copyright Office is soliciting ideas on this concept, a method exists to address accessibility for those disabled, and the "lost due to bankruptcy" sides. Two parts address each side.

Part 1: Copyright holders should be required to register each anti-circumvention method with the copyright office in exchange for which a number (which has no legal value) will be assigned to the method. IP firms which specialize in protection methods could register their methods as "base classes" for others. References to patent numbers might also be helpful.

Part 2: The holder then keeps a list available for public viewing which indicates the works and which copy protection methods they have employed. (Example: ebook "How To Be A Dummy," published 8Oct2005, document format: PRC, DRM method: 1,554,776 (Ref 334,665) ). Note that this is not registering your works. Ideally, this list should be notarized, either electronically or physically to prevent post-litigation tampering.

Part 1 takes the good old cryptography rule to heart, "The algorithm is never the secret. The input key is the secret." Two things happen here: bad protection is shamed away from being used, and the court system has a public notice of intent on the behalf of the holder requesting that the DMCA provide anti-circumvention enforcement. Then the U.S. Courts would only need to prove or disprove that the declared method was actually in use and attempting to protect the work in question. If expert commentary were recognized on at least "base class" methods, then prebuilt testimony could be used in courts to make enforcement of base-64 encoding methods an embarassment to the litigant.

Part 2 gives the courts the benefits of documentation regarding protected works. It also lets those who provide support to disabled individuals have a course of action with regard to legal circumvention. So it could, for example, allow someone who converts DRMed ebooks to audiobooks to become a limited, authorized agent to perform such action with nothing more than some paperwork from the copyright holder. If the copyright holder has disappeared (death or otherwise), then the method is publicly known and could be cracked within governed rules.

In short, there exists the potential to not take the teeth out of the DMCA while still executing it a more efficient way. Hopefully the methods described above represent ideas that tilt more power towards the public without actually removing any power of the copyright holder. Yes, many of us believe it should disappear, but the U.S. did sign an international treaty of which the DMCA is only a manifestation. Since the U.S. is a WTO member, it was a willing participant, although it could have fought back a little harder.

Careful about telling people to read the whole document. They may flip out about Article 29(3): "These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." Seriously, there was a lot of discussion about this in a previous story about the UN. WIPO, part of the UN, seems partial to DRM, so would Article 29 come into effect?

"Have you ever heard a slashdotter admit to how badly they are screwing the hundreds of other people besides the band and the bigwigs at RIAA that are involved in making their music?"

"I also get sick of the "new business model crap", unless it is explicitly followed by a suggestion of what business model is going to compete with free music."

So the specifics will probably reveal themselves when the time comes. Although, seeing as CD sales are actually going up in the US and UK, the biggest music markets, it doesn't look like the industry is hurting much at all. Despite the "pirate scare", people are still buying loads of music.

Anyway, specifics?

An artist can make money in different ways. People are still willing to pay for music even though it can be downloaded for free, so that's one way. The artist can also go on tour and do concerts, and make money that way too. You can also sell t-shirts, and whatever other items you might want to offer to your fans.

So there's no shortage of ways to make money. Maybe the music industry as we know it will die, but music won't go away, and artists will still be able to make money, even without selling music directly.

My guess is that the music will be a way to do marketing for a band. The music attracts fans, who in turn will go to concerts, buy stuff, and so on. The band can of course offer CDs or DVDs for sale, or even digital music, perhaps with special offers for people who pay for the music.

The business is not the hard part. The hard part is killing the current music industry and replacing it with something else. It'll take time to do.

"CD sales are down."

Some quotes:

"Global sales of recorded music were flat in 2004, with a slight reduction in physical audio sales offset by growing sales of DVD music videos and a sharp increase in sales of digital music."

"Even excluding digital sales, 2004 was the best year-on-year trend in global music sales for five years."

"Economic strength and strong releases helped CD volume growth of 2.8% and 4.5% in the US and UK, which together make up 47% of the value of the world market"

Note that Germany, where CD sales were down, saw an increase in DVD sales.

"Music sales in Latin America grew 12.6%"

"Music DVD sales rose 23% and have doubled their share of the world music market from 4% in 2002 to 8% in 2004 - with a value of US$2.6 billion dollars"

"CD sales increased in 36 markets in volume terms in 2004"

So basically, the IFPI is seeing an increase in CD sales in the biggest markets, and an increase in DVD and digital sales as well. 2004 seems to be a great year for the music industry, according to the IFPI.

Perhaps you could reveal your source now? You seem to put forth quite a few claims about various things, but you never seem to back up your claims and opinions with actual facts and figures.

Infact iTunes requires ISRC codes for your music to be listed, this results in restricting the ammount of indy music that is available on iTunes, and ensures the RIAA gets a cut of the majority of music on the service. MusicNet (the basis of services provied by HMV and Virgin) do not have that restriction. Apple are the major's friends, its a shame they cannot see that.

James

Slashdotted the IFPI!!! Don't click the link...they've had enough...or have they?

Great, a new acronym to learn and hate! (I hadn't been familiar with IFPI until a couple of articles today... for those curious, it is International Federation of Phonographic Industry which is ironic.)

Anyway, the assurance is that it removes only file sharing software. That in and of itself is questionable policy both in technical feasibility (as in guranteed not to do damage) and in philosophical sanity.

Next the assurance is no information will be uploaded or provided to any anti-piracy organizations. Really? This from a demographic willing to intimidate twelve year old girls with a team of high octane lawyers in legal torts? Trust us this time. I don't think so.

It strikes me as interesting that the technology has come around to start eating its own ass. Technology became good enough and inexpensive enough I saw it being used to track consumers' tastes and buying habits permitting targetted and efficient marketing. Now it appears to be fast, good, and inexpensive enough to be used to snoop on consumers and make sure they "don't have things they're not supposed to have". It's retarded, but it's what they're doing. (Yeah, I know there's the notion of the illegality of sharing things like mp3's, etc., in it's purest analysis, but before technology illegal "ownership" existed too. The difference as I see it is the modern-day "pilfering" spawns more sales rather than subtracts from. Whether or not I see that as rationalizing technically-illegal behavior is mostly moot, since the entertaninment industry claims they're doing this to stop hemhorraging sales.)

Hmm???

http://www.ifpi.org/dfc/downloads/setup.msi

The above link is the direct download of said software. I guess its for some kind of computer besides a Mac, Linux, or Solaris. It does not run on those. Oh well.

ROMS was set up by just a few Russian copyright holders, but rather than managing them, it now dubiously claims that, contrary to my reading of the statute, (I Am Not A Russian Lawyer: IANARL) it now has the rights for all copyright holders period. But even if they can make claim to all music, there's an "opt-out" clause which totally destroys their claim:

2. The owners of copyrights and neighboring rights who have not assigned powers to the organization with respect to the collection of royalties, as specified in Clause 4 of Article 46 of the present Act, shall be entitled to claim payment by the organization of the royalties due to them, according to the apportionment, and also to exclude their works and objects of neighboring rights from licenses issued to users by this organization.

The organization which has issued that opt-out to ROMS is the International Federation of Phonograhic Industries (IFPI), which represents legitimate worldwide rights-holders. As such, IFPI bluntly states that AllofMP3 has received no license to distribute music in Russia or internationally. Neither! Here's the press release.

Now here's the crucial item. IFPI lost their lawsuit against ROMS in Russia, but not for the reason you think. The Russian government did not claim that ROMS had any rights at all -- because they don't -- but instead claimed that the problem stems from a total lack of digital distribution laws in Russia at all. Russia thinks its copyright laws only apply to analog.

That may be fine, but it completely deligitimizes any claims of US buyers of AllofMP3's crap. Because the US does have such laws, and people purchasing from AllofMP3 are doing so illegally in violation of IFPI's rights. Imagine if someone set up a space station on Mars, with no laws at all, and started distributing illegal CDs. It doesn't matter if Mars has no laws: the US does, and purchase of thse CDs is illegal.

"It should come as no coincidence that Apple Computer recently announced a milestone of half a billion legal downloads at it's online music store.

The phenomenal growth of Apple's online music business should come as no surprise: Apple was the first - and only - company to carefully survey the online digital music landscape and focus on the inherent weaknesses of illegal file-trading networks before launching their online music store. Apple found that file-trading networks were awash with problems: the encoding quality of music that was available varied enormously, when and if the desired song could be found intact. Spyware also ravaged most networks; all but the most diligent users who entrust their computers to Microsoft's Windows operating system were adversely affected. Of course, in the end, the prize was free music, but the road travelled was anything but smooth.

It appears Apple's foresight paid off. The music store addressed all of the weaknesses of file-trading networks. Songs could be found instantly and intuitively . The encoding quality was pristine. The combined delivery system of Apple's music store, the iTunes music management software, and the iPod portable player proved to be the perfect combination that none of the file-trading networks could ever hope to match. It wasn't free, but it was strategically and fairly priced, with enough usage rights to enable consumers to do what any music aficionado would normally want and has done in the past with their purchased music.

I point this out to IFPI because you ignored it. The advance of broadband certainly has opened the door to increased online music consumption, but that alone wouldn't explain the substantial increase in legal music downloading. Quite simply (and unfortunately, virtually ignored by the music industry in the heyday of Napster), in order to enable consumers to purchase music online, a music purchasing system must exist that attracts consumers and offers a fully satisfactory online purchase experience. One that doesn't frustrate the consumer and tempt them towards an illegal alternative.

Prior to Apple's online music store, no such legal downloading method existed. Moreover, such an attempt wasn't even on the music business industry's radar at the time. It took Apple - a computer company - to develop the perfect legal downloading model that for the first time offered consumers an attractive alternative to illegal file-sharing networks. It took Apple to sell the idea to blinded music industry executives who were more concerned with finding ways to keep music off the internet. That moment in history cannot be rewritten by you, and unfortunately, as future technological challenges arise, it portends poorly for a music industry that has shown itself to be stymied by the challenge of incorporating internet distribution technologies for music in it's business plans.

And it seems a little premature for self-congratulatory statements regarding the threat of lawsuits impacting illegal music downloading. You can drink that Kool-aid if you desire, but notwithstanding the above, the reports you reference concerning legions of lawsuit fearing consumers suddenly turning a new leaf and embracing legal music downloading don't even casually add up. Worse, it serves as a reminder of the continuing morass that music industry executives portray as a whole; the industry still fails to recognize the advantages and significance of developing beneficial internet technologies, and instead invests in disadvantageous putative measures to "manage" music consumption."

In the interest of promoting more enlightened discussion, the full text of the "Music is Driving Growth in Digital Commerce" speech, presented by John Kennedy, CEO and Chairman of the IFPI to the ETNO (European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association) Conference in Brussles, on March 3rd, 2005, can be found here.

Nothing has taken place in America hence the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America have no say in what goes on.

RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is a member of IFPI (International Federation for the Phonographic Industry). BPI (British Phonographic Industry) is also a member of IFPI. Several other national record label interest groups are members of IFPI, and record labels' international divisions are often members of those groups. MPAA has a division called Motion Picture Association that does the MPAA's bidding outside the United States.

• World Console Software + PC Software, worldwide, 2003: US$18.5 bn
• Film industry revenues, worldwide, 2003: $180bn.
• Music (audio & video) recordings, worldwide, 2003: US$32 bn

By comparison, IBM has revenues of about $80 billion per year.

What's the point of preventing people from copying shitty music?

It's what the people want.

Well, either you believe the RIAA's bullshit about music downloading eating into sales, or you believe that today's music is not at all what the people want.

Those are the only two possible explanations for the four-year drop in CD sales. And none of us reasonable people believe downloading has had any noticeable net effect on CD sales.

Personally, I've bought one new CD in the past two years. And I'm one of those guys that used to take pride in the size of his record/CD collection; I used to buy at least one or two CD's per week, usually more than that. I've also bought a couple of older catalog CD's in the past year but that's about it. People like me are the reason why the RIAA's sales numbers are down - we're the ones that used to spend all of our money on music, but a lot of us feel like we already own pretty much all the good music that we want, and new music is mostly a barren wasteland of talentless hacks. There most certainly is not anywhere close to 1-2 quality CD's worth of music coming out every week; nowhere close to enough good stuff to keep up my previous purchasing pace.

This is the RIAA's problem, and DRM in Longhorn is not going to fix it. I couldn't care less if I can't copy Britney Spears' next CD - that's not going to affect my life in the least bit. It's unfortunate that our rights are being taken away here but I'm sure like every other DRM scheme, it'll be cracked anyway for those that do find something new that they'd like to rip.

To me, though, there's enough good music already on the market that if I can't rip the one or two decent new releases per year, I've got more than enough to listen to for the rest of my life.

The not-really-a-CD logo was introduced a couple of years back and I have seen it on a few discs.

That compares the first quarter of 2004 to the first quarter of 2003. When you compare whole years the numbers tell a different story.

Comparing a single quarter to another is not accurate in the music business, since only a few big hit releases in a quarter can sway the numbers, thus when dealing with such a volitile industry a larger representative sample is required.

This is the kind of lunatic laws you get when the recording industry lobbies government (hey, they got the cash!). Even in dear old Canada, where the courts protect our privacy through ISPs and uphold our right to freely copy media we own, the recording industry is lobbying government to change Canadian copyright law. If our government ratifies WIPO, as the industry is pushing them to do, we'll lose many of the media rights we enjoy (this will bring the DMCA into Canada). Please, visit our Digital Copyright Canada site, sign the Petition for Users' rights, and make digital freedom an election issue!

Outside of the US, we have the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) instead of the RIAA.

wtf? That's 0.6% not 7.5%

The 32.2 G$ figure is apparently for all media formats, including DVD-audio, Apple iTunes, and music video sales, which were all rising. The 7.5% figure is the fall in sales in the CD category only. The basic math about the royalties fraud versus piracy losses for artists is probably still right.

umbrella group misspelling

Well, almost no impact. According to a new study, "downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero". Monday's NYTimes (free registration) describes the study, in which two economists analyzed file-sharing and sales data over a 17-week period in 2002, using "complex mathematical formulas" to determine that "spikes in downloading had almost no discernible effect on sales", and estimating that "it would take 5000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one copy". Naturally, some organizations disagree. Also, according to the RIAA's 2003 year end numbers [PDF], sales of CD singles were up 84% from 2002, while overall revenue shrunk from $11.55 to $11.05 billion... which makes perfect sense when you consider economic tendencies since 9/11.

I was curious that the CNN article didn't mention US sales for the year, since they said Europe and Japan were down significantly. The US was down 12% in the first half of the year, but picked up enough in the second half for a 6% drop overall.

I remember a study posted here once that showed another factor to declining music sales was the industry was putting out less product. No mention of total units shipped to retailers in this report.

You explanation of "piracy" is pretty decent.

For reference the International Federation of the Phonograph Industry (IFPI) which is the umbrella organsation of all the various national industry organsiations worldwide (such as the RIAA, which is a member in good standing, along with 1500 record producers and distributors in 76 nations) defines piracy more-or-less as you do.

Check out the music industry's own definitons here:
IFPI: What is Piracy?

If there's no commercial gain, there's no piracy.

The Dutch courts have ruled that the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a worldwide analogue of the RIAA), can not sue Kazaa for the transgressions of its users (e.g.). This means Kazaa will be available for legal filesharing, and the recording industry must go after individuals who engage in illegal filesharing.

The Dutch make up about 20% of the world's filesharing individuals, according to the article.

The Copyright Act 1985 c-42 Canada is available here. It's been amended a few times (latest, April 2003) but those changes have little bearing on the slashdot subject. Users with little time want to check out Part VIII, Private Copying; and in particular Section 80; Copying for Private Use.

Some comments on the discussion so far:
The Recording Industry Association of America represents US record companies. They don't now, and never have, anything to do with Canada or any other country.

The RIAA is a member of the IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide. Their website has a great link called "Anti-Piracy" and a defintion under What is Piracy? Please note the definition has not a word about dowloading, or copying a buddy's CD, but instead refers to what the RIAA tends to call Counterfeiting.

The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CIRA) is the body which represents the industry in Canada. They are the equivalent to the RIAA in that country and if anyone was suing anybody in Canada, they would be doing it, not the RIAA. Ever.

Uploading music is completely illegal in Canada, as is allowing it to be shared. CIRA can and probably will sue anyone who does it, and they will win. Damages, on the other hand, won't be even close to the numbers the US courts give out, which probably explains why they're not hiring a floorful of lawyers about it, so far.

What the Copyright Act allows, is the copying, for personal use, of music from any source. So, downloading is fine, as is borrowing the CD from the public library (most Canadian libraries have extensive music collections available) or a buddy, or any other source you can imagine. There are no restricitons, of any kind, on the source of the music you use to create a copy.

Steal a disk and copy it; the crime remains the theft of a $20 disk, not the copying of that "illegal" disk.

The restriction is only the person making the copy has any right to use it. You cannot lend, give away, or otherwise distribute a Personal Copy made under authorization of Section 80.

Thus, allowing your mp3s to be available to others via a shared drive or network is against the law in Canada, as is making a disk and giving it to Grandma for Christmas. Granny has to run her own burner. And moving to Canada would not protect any of those who the RIAA has sued recently; what they do is still against the law north of 49.

The US media, especially the RIAA, has done a great job of marketing their message worldwide, not just in their jurisdiction. Thus, almost every Canadian (and absolutely every journalist; lazy no check-facting idiots that they are) is completely unaware of the Act, or how it applies to copying. They all think it's illegal to burn CDs in Canada.

The Copyright Act 1985 c-42 Canada is available here. It's been amended a few times (latest, April 2003) but those changes have little bearing on the slashdot subject. Users with little time want to check out Part VIII, Private Copying; and in particular Section 80; Copying for Private Use.

Some comments on the discussion so far:
The Recording Industry Association of America represents US record companies. They don't now, and never have, anything to do with Canada or any other country.

The RIAA is a member of the IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide. Their website has a great link called "Anti-Piracy" and a defintion under What is Piracy? Please note the definition has not a word about dowloading, or copying a buddy's CD, but instead refers to what the RIAA tends to call Counterfeiting.

The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CIRA) is the body which represents the industry in Canada. They are the equivalent to the RIAA in that country and if anyone was suing anybody in Canada, they would be doing it, not the RIAA. Ever.

Uploading music is completely illegal in Canada, as is allowing it to be shared. CIRA can and probably will sue anyone who does it, and they will win. Damages, on the other hand, won't be even close to the numbers the US courts give out, which probably explains why they're not hiring a floorful of lawyers about it, so far.

What the Copyright Act allows, is the copying, for personal use, of music from any source. So, downloading is fine, as is borrowing the CD from the public library (most Canadian libraries have extensive music collections available) or a buddy, or any other source you can imagine. There are no restricitons, of any kind, on the source of the music you use to create a copy.

Steal a disk and copy it; the crime remains the theft of a $20 disk, not the copying of that "illegal" disk.

The restriction is only the person making the copy has any right to use it. You cannot lend, give away, or otherwise distribute a Personal Copy made under authorization of Section 80.

Thus, allowing your mp3s to be available to others via a shared drive or network is against the law in Canada, as is making a disk and giving it to Grandma for Christmas. Granny has to run her own burner. And moving to Canada would not protect any of those who the RIAA has sued recently; what they do is still against the law north of 49.

The US media, especially the RIAA, has done a great job of marketing their message worldwide, not just in their jurisdiction. Thus, almost every Canadian (and absolutely every journalist; lazy no check-facting idiots that they are) is completely unaware of the Act, or how it applies to copying. They all think it's illegal to burn CDs in Canada.

Neither disc has the CD logo on it, and both had very large stickers on the shrink-wrap with this logo on it and descriptions of what it meant, and what systems you should be able to play it on. (Since I refused to install the software necessary to actually play these on a computer, I have no idea how well they work in that respect.) I'm certainly going to avoid these from here on out if I can. I've noticed that amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr and amazon.de will occasionally note that a disc is copy-protected, so I'm going to check there first before buying from here on out.

Functionally - yes, but the abbreviation stands for a different name.