French layoffs may result in pressure on illegal downloading

GristyMcFisty used our news submit to tell us 300 French record company workers hit the streets in protest of some upcoming layoffs in the music industry there. It seems BMG, Sony, EMI, Universal and Warner are threatening to slash 1000 workers positions.

The companies say music sales have plummeted 20 per cent this year and 15 per cent last year because of illegal downloading from the Internet. French unions, however, expressed a different view. They say the record industry has been too slow to adapt to the new trends in music consumption. According to Martine Zulber, an official in the CFDT union which organised the demonstration, most of the music industry"s costs went to marketing, advertising and royalties, so "they can"t just apply accounting logic to the crisis", she told AFP. France"s culture minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres earlier this year vowed his country will get tough with illegal copiers of music and movies. He wants to see what technical measures can be taken to minimise illegal downloading.

This unfortunate situation of loss of jobs cannot simply be attributed to piracy as the sole cause. We have only "X" amount of dollars to fritter away on these type of things. So decisions have to be made. You produce a good product, at a reasonable price and it sells. If you don't, the customer goes elsewhere. Even if they do buy an inferior prodiuct once, if they get burned they may not return again. On the other hand, we have read that record sales are up, only the store inventories are down, so it's anyones guess what is going on.

My guess is the French are getting a taste of good old American "downsizing". The beauty of it is they can blame pirates for it. Meanwhile, everyone left at the workplace has to tow the load of their missing comrades, all in the name of profit.

Source: The Register