What The RIAA Gets Out Of File Sharing

ChrisPaget writes "Wired have a fascinating article about a company called BigChampagne which sells regional P2P download statistics to most of the major record labels. When the labels know what people are downloading, they know what to put on the radio, and sales in the area increase. The record industry's lawsuits against file- sharing companies hang on their assertion that the programs have no use other than to help infringe copyrights. If the labels acknowledge a legitimate use for P2P programs, it would undercut their case as well as their zero-tolerance stance."

Comments

Re:They won't be undercut

[Ilgaz]

Ahem, I decided to get a firewall and keep this PC running 24/7, for sharing...

I'll run shareaza 24/7, just for those morons sued a 12 year old KID while they speak about pedophilia , I share all files...

There, RIAA lawyers reading Slashdot (of course they do), your answer, I am in Istanbul, BITE ME.

Re:What I get out of file sharing

[Overly Critical Guy]

This was the most moronic thing I've read. Figures it'd get modded up.

If you gave away 10,000 copies, why would anybody buy it? They already have it, and they got it without paying for it.

File-sharing isn't a medium for marketing. It's copyright infringement. Nobody gave permission for you to be trading artists' material, and you DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT to decide for them, either. Legally...or morally.

Of course you think file-sharing has more positives than negatives. You obviously are a downloader, used to the convenience of years of mp3-downloading. Meanwhile, you're grabbing people's music without compensation. I'm sure they don't share your appreciation for that idea, seeing as how they make they're living and all through it.

People have twisted file-sharing into some anti-RIAA movement, trying to push out the artist in the equation, forgetting that it's their material you're getting for free, illegally. That's why you see so many anti-RIAA posts. It's everyone trying to justify this thing in their minds. It's sad. It degenerates to the point where you get crap like what you wrote--file-sharing being another form of "marketing." Yeah, some marketing. They've already gotten the product!