Quakester2000 and GristyMcFisty both used our news submit to let us know that British Phonographic Industry (BPI) are getting serious about users illegally sharing music online. They are now asking file sharers to stop sharing its music or face ending up in court. They will use P2P services instant messaging capabilities to warn P2P users about this. The BPI predicts that the majority of music
shared on P2P networks in theUK is done by only a
small fraction of the total users running P2P software and they will aim to
target serious uploaders first.
While the British buy more music than any other country, around 18% say they have downloaded music. Only 8% of these downloader's claim to use legal download services however. The BPI have also announced that over the past 12 months, album sales have fell by 32% and single sales fell a significant 59% and blame this due to users helping themselves by getting their music from file sharing networks. Note that the BPI's figures are based on spending and not quantity of sales.
|
"It is causing real financial damage to everyone involved in the business," said BPI chairman Peter Jamieson. A new instant messaging campaign on the internet will be used to warn users they are obtaining music illegally. 'Serial' offenders It will tell downloaders they should disable their file-sharing software - or face court action. The BPI has blamed a small number of "serial uploaders" for making thousands of music files available for sharing over the internet illegally. Read the full BBC story here. |
While not
long ago, album sales
have been reported to be on the increase , the BPI have decided to use spending figures this time to make it appear that sales are in fact declining due to piracy and illegal downloads. With the prices of CDs falling significantly in the UK, it would in fact take a much greater increase in the quantity of sales before the spending figures even reach that of last year.
This reminds me of what happened starting last year in the US. First the RIAA warned about the risks of swapping files on P2P networks and how this activity affects sales. Next they sent
out instant messages to P2P users that were sharing its music. Finally, out came the subpoena's
followed by lawsuits . It looks like the BPI is preparing to launch its own large-scale lawsuit attack.
Source: BBC News - Music
