Another issue that is still grabbing a lot of attention is the Federal Court of Canada ruling (hat tip: David Akin), which was a double loss for CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association). Not only did Mr. Justice Von Finckenstein denied the music industry’s request to make Canadian ISPs surrender details about customers allegedly involved in heavy duty file swapping, but he also maintained that uploading and downloading music does not infringe copyright law in Canada. The argument was simple: placing a song on a shared directory does not amount to distribution.
The March 31st decision surprised a few analysts, and will certainly be appealed. A few days later (last week), the music industry was back on the attack against piracy. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (a
But can this decline be solely attributed to piracy? US numbers actually show an increase in sales in late 2003. In the past, during the Xerox revolution, copyright laws were being constantly violated in libraries across the world, as people used photocopy machines to copy textbooks, old newspaper articles, encyclopedias and so on. Yet, that did not kill the printing industry… Just like Hollywood was not destroyed by the advent of the VCR.
Isn’t the music industry missing the big picture? Instead of solely focusing on litigation, why not consider other revenue generating alternatives? And what could these options be? One possible solution can be new technology to put in digital keys/signatures on the files (which is used by Puretracks service). But like any other form of protection, it is bound to be eventually cracked by some smart hackers being able to commandeer sufficient computing power to perform brute force attacks.
My favorite concept is the promise of going to a store like HMV, and being able to burn a blank CD with a compilation of my favorite hits for an artist (and paying a license fee for each song). This would help turn the issue into a positive. Pirates would be dissuaded to spend time searching for these favorite songs, then having to convert the files from MP3 to WAV format and then burn their CDs. It would be far simpler, faster and more effective to do this at a music store, where the shiny CD can also be etched with a personal message (as an option for an additional cost). The public will get more choice and be empowered to choose whichever songs it wants to be on its own personalized CDs. This may not sit well with some artists (and could very well mean the end of albums with one or two big hits and a bunch of other "fillers"). But in the long run, I believe it will be the preferred way for the savvy consumer to purchase music in the future.
And this can be a far more effective way to curb music piracy, instead of solely adopting the path of litigation and then hoping for a favorable ruling. As CRIA became painfully aware, the outcome of the legal action approach is not always a favorable one, particularly in a country such as Canada, where consumers at large already pony up a levy as a form of compensation to the music industry whenever they buy blank CDs...