According to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life project,
over 50% of previous music downloader's have abandoned their practice as a result of the RIAA's
actions, particularly students.
However, this does not mean that this percentage has suddenly changed to
legal download services or started purchasing music. Many simply found another method of
getting their music and one of these methods is by recording streaming radio
stations, much like taping off the radio in the days before even the Internet
took off.
Audio Xtract is a popular software utility that many students use to do
just that. Like a TiVo system, the
program not only records streaming radio, but also splits the recording into
individual tracks along with the artist and title information provided in the
stream. With up to 8 streams of
recording, it does not take long to gather a fair size collection of music
without searching, checking for dud's or risking having the music
industry go after them for sharing music.
However, unlike file sharing software, Audio Xtract and many other
sophisticated stream recorders are not freeware. The basic version costs of Audio Xtract
costs $ 49.99 which gives up to 8 streams of recording and CD burning and its
professional version costs $ 69.99 which gives CD ripping capabilities, audio
transcoding and eliminate the 'song overlap' effect that some radio stations use.
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Millions of Americans have abandoned peer-to-peer music sharing in the past year, since the initiation of a series of lawsuits filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against individuals suspected of copyright infringement. In fact, a survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicates that over fifty percent of former downloaders have abandoned the practice. Now, many of those young music aficionados - especially students - are turning to Audio Xtract, the Internet radio recording software that works like a VCR or TiVo for streaming music. Jambalaya Brands, a St. Louis-based software marketing firm, today introduced Audio Xtract Professional Edition - an enhanced version of the now popular Internet radio recording software that has sold throughout the United States and in over 20 countries around the world. Audio Xtract Pro is geared toward Internet music lovers who want even greater flexibility to rip, mix, edit and convert all their music files. |
It is not clear if radio stream recording is any more illegitimate than
using a TiVo system. The only
difference here is that the recording does not contain a video stream. For the recording industry this makes
tracking users more difficult since there recording streams is virtually
untraceable and nothing gets shared out.
Like P2P services, many
streaming radio stations are free to listen to and unlike legal download
services, most streaming radio stations do not incorporate DRM measures.
For the time being, this loophole is something the music industry will have to
watch out for. Then again, I remember the time when the music industry
claimed that taping off the radio was killing the music industry, however this
has certainly not been the case.
Source: Music Industry News Network
