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MAY 5, 2003
By Jane Black Big Music: Win Some, Lose a Lot More? [Page 2 of 2]
"REALLY SCARED." One battle over, a war still to wage, says the RIAA. On Apr. 30, the music industry announced that it would use the file-trading networks to send pop-up messages over instant-messaging software to users who were uploading or downloading music. The RIAA says it hopes to send out 1 million messages each week saying: "When you break the law, you risk legal penalties. There is a simple way to avoid that risk: DON'T STEAL MUSIC." As much as the RIAA's enforcement battle draws contempt from college students, some evidence shows that it's getting the downloaders' attention. The day the RIAA filed suit against the four students, 18 college music networks were shut down, the RIAA says. At Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J., news of the student payments to the RIAA set off alarm bells. "The settlement had some people really scared," says one Rowan student who requested anonymity. In the wake of the ruling, some students are considering burning their immense music collections onto CDs -- an attempt to safeguard their pirated booty. "No one believes this is wrong. If they sue the company, I'll just go use [a rival file-sharing service]," the Rowan student adds. "But it really hits home when you have to pay thousands of dollars for an MP3 collection." WHAT MUSIC FANS WANT. Scaring kids straight may be one part of the equation for ending music piracy. But not everyone is so sanguine. "Stealing music is wrong. There's no question. The question is: How do you deal with it?" says intellectual-property attorney Jim Burger of Washington (D.C.) firm Dow Lohnes & Albertson, who represents the computer industry. "Turning everyone off the idea of P2P when you don't have a competitive alternative isn't good business sense." Burger and others believe the music industry should push a more understanding message while simultaneously developing services that offer consumers what they really want: A massive selection of songs that they can burn to CDs or transfer to digital music players. The Apple iTunes Music Store service, launched Apr. 28, is a good first step: Apple charges no subscription fee. Anyone with a Mac can download any of 200,000 tracks for 99 cents apiece. In the first two days, users downloaded 475,000 tracks, according to record-label executives. If the momentum continues, the labels will have sold more than 1.4 million tracks in a single week -- far more than they've sold at the existing industry-backed services in the past 18 months (see BW Online, 4/30/03, "Steve Jobs, Pied Piper of Online Music"). "CHANGE THE CULTURE." The bottom line: Being feared, rather than loved, has its points. The music industry does have to make it clear that violating copyrights is illegal -- and for now, a strategy of threats against young, impressionable customers may be the only thing that works. Yet no legal strategy by itself is likely to end rampant music piracy anytime soon. "Law is never the leading edge. We must change the culture to solve the problem," says David Byer, an intellectual-property attorney at Boston law firm, Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault. Harnessing existing technology to give the culture what it wants in a legal way wouldn't hurt, either.
 Black covers technology issues for BusinessWeek Online in New York Edited by Douglas Harbrecht Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
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