Attempts To Stop Music Sharing Pointless?

job0 writes "An interesting paper (Word document) has been submitted by some Microsoft employees (although they are careful to state that that the views are theirs and not necessarily Microsoft's) to the 2002 ACM Workshop on Digital Rights Management stating that attempts by the record industry to stop music copying will fail simply because a) the growth and availability of affordable broadband and cheap data storage devices and b )ability of users to circumvent any DRM measures means that the number of people willing to swap is growing and will soon outstrip attempts to shut them down. The paper goes to suggest that the record industry should concentrate their efforts on trying music cheaper and easier to get hold off. I wonder if Hilary and friends have had a read. The BBC is also carrying the story." (OpenOffice has no problem with the paper, btw.)

Comments

Re:Sharing is not infringement in many countries.

[mangu]

Until you can convince me that your music is worth paying for, you are $10000 in the red. And you'll never be able to convince me just by mentioning how much you spent. A crappy 10 second teaser won't do it either. I need to listen to a music several times before I decide to spend any money on it.

Look at it from your clients point of view: if you think you are entitled to get something for your $10000, why can't we make sure we are getting something worth it, before we pay $10 for your CD?

Follow the money

[Get Behind the Mule]

"Follow the money" was Deep Throat's advice to Bob Woodward, and that's what will define the conflict that is yet to unfold in the music industry. The record companies have been making gazillions for doing little of value for a long time, and now technology is tearing away the means by which that has been possible. They are going to fight ruthlessly to maintain the status quo. Look for lots of cash flowing to politicians, who in turn will try to prop up a doomed industry with draconian law. It's going to be a long, nasty, high-stakes battle.

Although the RIAA loves to squawk about the artists losing money due to file-swapping, the fact is that the artists get nearly nothing in the present system, and the corporations keep almost all of the moolah. This despite the fact that they contribute literally none of the value that consumers pay for when they buy music. You can't just replace Alicia Keys with Madonna; but it is completely irrelevant whether a CD is published by Warner, Universal or my cousin Vinnie.

They've been able to do this because they have had control over three elements of the music business:

1. Production (studios, CD manufacturing)
   
2. Marketing (promotion, concert tours & control of most of mainstream radio)
   
3. Distribution (ownership of most of mainstream record stores, control over CD rack space in the stores)
   

Now, technology has loosened their grip on all three of these areas, especially the last. Neither the corporations nor anyone else can control how music is distributed any more -- it is, or could be, entirely in the hands of consumers. And distribution networks have a "word-of-mouth" effect on spreading knowledge about new music, so that corporate marketing is a little bit less important. And although they still run the studios, and probably always will, manufacturing CDs is almost obsolete now. All you need is a file; the costs of replication are nil, and consumers can do it all themselves.

I believe that most consumers would be willing to go along with schemes by which they pay for copied music, as long as the music costs significantly less than it does now (say, $1 for a CD), and if most of it goes to the artist (say 90%). The record companies will get much, much less than they do now, because we hardly need them any more. Of course, they do some work that is necessary and should be compensated, but it will end up being much closer to their true economic worth -- and that means a very small fraction of their current income.

But before that happens, they are going to bite and scratch and scream, and it's going to be ugly. They have a multibillion-dollar cash cow, and they will do everything in their power to save it.