The Chumbawamba Factor

putko writes "Chris Dahlen has written about BigChampagne, a company that looks at peer-to-peer downloading to provide marketing data to record companies. By analyzing what folks are downloading, when and where, BigChampagne can tell the record companies what people like, what other records they like and other information critical to deciding how to allocate marketing dollars. As mentioned in the article, record companies started using this information (secretly) even as they were trying to stop filesharing via the courts."

Comments

Eat Your Cake

[mfh]

First off, for those of you who have no idea, or only a vague memory; "Chumbawamba are a band from the UK who use their music to promote anarchist ideas."

So the RIAA et al are trying to put an end to P2P, while hypocritically using P2P stats to know what's hot; they have crossed the threshold from tyranny into absurdity. What judge, knowing this, will still side with the RIAA in the future? Does this not set a precedent that the RIAA sees value in P2P?

The RIAA is reacting to a market change; P2P. They are learning that P2P has value to them, perhaps more value than loss, in that they can get a real consensus on what people want. Furthermore, the RIAA can no longer deem P2P as an immoral behaviour that corrupts society, because the fruit from the tree has poisoned their self-professed purity.