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Russia - the Internet villain or hero?
Jonathan Bowers, April 7th 2006, 12:15PM
American congress has named China and Russia the world's two biggest Internet pirates. Earlier this year, the UK's ISPA named Russia in its top 5 Internet villains and this week an XTN Data survey tells us that Russia's allofmp3.com is one of the three most popular legal music download sites in the world. Although, the site is called quasi-legal by many.
I'm with the consumer perspective on this. If you create a global market and encourage anyone to sell within it, then you have to be prepared that someone somewhere will be able to provide at a cheaper rate than others. I know a lot of people from different walks of life that download music from allofmp3 and will continue to do so until they are told that it is illegal. Quite simply - as consumers, we want value for money. It's not as though our first thought is for the starving music executives, it's more likely to be for the huge price rises we've seen over the years on CD's.
Should allofmp3 be bundled into the 'villain' category? People find the loop holes in business everywhere in order to get the legal edge. Often they're closed. But until this loop hole is closed isn't it more of a 'hero' for the people?
Tags: downloads, internetlaw
Comments
Chris Norton, April 7th 2006, 3:14PM
Well JB, I think the thing that bothers me about allofmp3 is the idea that the prices are so low musicians must be seeing absolutely *nothing* for their stuff being dled. Then again, it starts me thinking - thinking that the whole idea of charging for music itself may one day become kind of obsolete (not that I see it happening soon, given how much money the likes of Apple are raking in with online music shops). Some bands apparently make more money out of t-shirt sales and ringtones rather than their music. The times, as Bob told us, are a-changing.
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(Plain text only)
Giles Smith, April 10th 2006, 1:15PM
Some Food for thought...
QUOTE:
CD sales may be slipping, but paid downloads are growing at a much faster rate than CD sales are declining. Ultimately, that’s good for the labels’ bottom line since digital music distribution is much less costly than manufacturing and shipping physical media. Download rates should continue to grow, as digital music players become even more popular and consumers continue to embrace digital distribution.
The labels should also forget about CD sales ever recovering, and should stop using that as a metric for measuring piracy or other industry wores. Like it or not, the album’s time has come and gone. Sure, artists will continue to release music in album form (and some of those will be worth buying), but consumers are becoming accustomed to cherry picking their favorite tracks. Why buy an entire CD for one or two good songs when you can buy the tracks you want individually?
END QUOTE