Valleywag
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry — that's the RIAA for the rest of the world — says illegal music downloads outnumbered legal ones 20 to 1 in 2007. The music-industry association also expects CD sales, which dropped 11 percent between 2005 and 2006, to drop further in 2007. To the industry, this means we should all support measures like the one recently proposed by French President Nicholas Sarkozy.
Sarkozy said Internet service providers should automatically disconnect customers involved in piracy. (AT&T has privacy advocates all fired up after proposing a less-stringent plan.)
For the rest of us, and at least one major record label executive, the numbers suggest the recording industry should stop trying to plug the Hoover Dam with bubble gum. Change has come.
(Photo by kyle simourd)
Comments
In other news, a recent study shows that at least 77% of all statistics are invented in order to make other statistics seem plausible.
Such a "glass is half-empty way of looking at things!" Why not spin it positively? "5% of downloaders are paying for their music!"
@loudersoft: Amen. They count my downloads as illegal, but only because they don't recognize any law in the world but US. I'm not in the US, but I'm one of those "pirates" according to them.
How do they come up with these numbers? Other than taking a truly random sample of the entire global population, I see no way for anyone to determine the actual rate of piracy.
And how do they expect ISPs to determine what is pirated material and what isn't? Suppose I already own a CD and download a digital copy of it. Legally, that would be fair use and therefore not piracy, correct? Or what if I am the artist that created the music? Is downloading my own work piracy?
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