RIAA Claims P2P Has Been Contained

Magorak writes "USA Today is reporting the RIAA now claims that the issues surrounding P2P and piracy have been contained and are no longer as big an issue as they once were. From the article; 'The problem has not been eliminated,' says association CEO Mitch Bainwol. 'But we believe digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business, and file-trading is flat.'"

Comments

that is ridiculous- e.g. Gnutella

[LM741N]

I can still get on Gnutella and find almost every song that exists. What a bunch of nonsense. I believe they are just saying this so they can save face in the midst of their defeat.

Re:that is ridiculous- e.g. Gnutella

[moranar]

To be "fair", what they seem to be saying is that even though every existing song can be found on p2p, the money they're making is still increasing while p2p downloads aren't.

Re:that is ridiculous- e.g. Gnutella

[gstoddart]

I can still get on Gnutella and find almost every song that exists. What a bunch of nonsense. I believe they are just saying this so they can save face in the midst of their defeat.

Or, they're trying to use it as a tactic to convince people that everybody else has given up on using p2p, and they're better off switching to the 'legit' ways of doing it.

Sometimes, trying to affect people's perceptions is as effective as trying to affect their actions.

Everything the *AA's says is all about spin and perception!

Re:that is ridiculous- e.g. Gnutella

[Skreems]

So basically, they finally realized what the OSS/P2P/Hippie/Thief community (yeah yeah, flame on) has been saying for years: that "illegal" downloads are not actually depriving them of any money, since people use it to test out bands they're unsure of, or discover new music, as often as they just download without paying? But even though the rest of us have been trying to stuff this idea into their tiny little skulls, they have to declare moral victory so they don't lose face?

If you were the RIAA...

[Douglas Simmons]

What would you do?

Seriously...

Snrk

[American AC in Paris]

But we believe digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business

...yeah, after Apple dragged your sorry asses kicking and screaming into the digital age. After you tried everything in your power to make digital downloads as locked down, expensive, and all but impossible to effectively implement.

Digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business despite your lot's best efforts to screw it all up.

Re:Snrk

[linefeed0]

You mean Apple's digital downloads aren't also locked down, too expensive (and jeezus, $2 for a single music video or SNL skit?!), and a pain in the ass for everyone involved? That's news to me!

Re:i tried really

[KU_Fletch]

Well, if you can't really achieve victory, just change the goalposts to something easier and calim you won.

Yes, they do have to do it.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

But even though the rest of us have been trying to stuff this idea into their tiny little skulls, they have to declare moral victory so they don't lose face?

Yes, they do.

Their company exists to protect the interests of their member copyright holders against widespread unauthorized copying.

Up to now their members/customers/owners have been interpreting the "internet piracy" as lost sales - or at least more sales lost than sales gained by free advertising, etc. - and they didn't have a download business model.

In this atmosphere, if they were to declare surrender, their members/customers/owners would just let them die - or replace their execs with new ones who would attempt to carry on the fight.

But now "this stuff" is beginning to percolate into the skulls of the RIAA's customers. And many of them do have a way to profit directly from authorized downloads (thanks to iTunes and the like). So it's now possible for both the RIAA and its clientele to look at things more rationally. They can entertain the possibility that unauthorized downloading, like pre-Betamax-decision videotaping of broadcasts, might not be an unmitigated disaster - and may even be a Good Thing (especially once the for-pay alternative is available for honest people who are more than browsing.)

So the RIAA can now back off its enforcement efforts and go back to more reasonable functions, such as hunting down mass-production pirates, collecting royalties from broadcasters and those creating commercial public performances, and so on.

But on their way out they still need to declare victory - not just to save their own tails, but to keep some pressure on downloaders to go to the commercial services and pay the 99 cents, and to keep in the public mind the idea that they SHOULD do so.

(Of course they can claim to their clientele (with some justification) that their efforts to date are what branded this concept into "the public mind" in the first place.)

Meanwhile, now that the clients see that the "piracy" isn't going to sink their ships they can get on with the job of making product and making money off it, and taking advantage of the new medium to make even more profit.

New media mean new opportunities for profit, and these opportunities are greater than the (largely illusory) "losses" from the unauthorized copying they enable. This was shown with piano rolls, wax tube recordings, disk recordings, radio broadcasting, and tape recordings.

Now it has been shown with digital recordings and network distribution. But it's sufficiently counter-intuitive to The Suits that they have to learn it fresh every time.