Quakester2000 and GristyMcFisty both informed us about
an article over at BBC News. According to Cary Sherman, head of the RIAA, the
impact of online piracy on the U.S. music business has been "devastating".
During a conference held in London Mr. Sherman announced that a 31% decline
in music sales between 1999 and 2002 was primarily due to piracy.
"More music is being consumed than at any
time in history, it's just that less of it is being paid for," he said.
 The industry is fighting back by licensing download services and
taking legal action against music pirates. The RIAA is also backing a
large-scale "educational campaign" including public service adverts and
targeting the university student market, a major area of piracy. Mr
Sherman was speaking at this week's Financial Times New Media and
Broadcasting Conference in London.
Film file-sharing
Escalating online sales in the US suggest
that lawsuits targeting pirates are having an impact on peer-to-peer
file-sharing of copyrighted material. Although legitimate online sales are
up sharply, they still represent only a fraction of what is being
exchanged via the net.
Rob Sisco, president of Nielsen Music, said
lawsuits by the RIAA have rekindled sales, not by striking fear in music
pirates but by educating users.
The US film industry is also threatened by
rampant internet piracy. This has been made worse by the increased
availability of broadband and the imminent removal of technical barriers
to moving and storing massive amounts of content, said Dara MacGreevy of
the Motion Picture Association of America.
But despite piracy fears, analysts believe
the future of the music industry lies in online digital downloads. Since
the files can be easily transported and stored on a range of devices, they
have transformed the way people consume music. Chris Gorog, head of the
Napster music download service, believes ventures like his will be highly
profitable in the long-term. |
According to a recent study by consultancy
Forrester Research, by 2008 one-third of music sales in the U.S. and nearly 20%
in Europe will come in the form of downloads and streaming music over the
internet. You can read the complete article here.
Source: BBC NEWS
