Another international record body targets music file sharers

Posted on 30 Mar 2004 at 12:05

The record industry has launched its latest batch of legal attacks on unauthorised file sharing, as evidence grows that the practice does not have the detrimental effect on music sales that the industry claims.

Following several rounds of lawsuits by the RIAA in the US and last week's announcement of action by the UK's BPI, the record labels' international body, the IFPI, has announced 247 lawsuits in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada. As in the US and UK, individuals suspected of making (unspecified) large numbers of tracks available to others are being pursued. Further lawsuits in these and other countries will follow in the coming months.

IPFI chairman and CEO Jay Berman said, 'We have made it clear that file-sharing without the permission of the copyright holder is illegal, that it amounts to "file stealing", and that it affects jobs and livelihoods across the whole industry.'

The campaign has the backing of local music industry associations, online music services such as OD2, music retailers, and the Musicians' Union.

'People forget that the music industry is not just about the stars, it's about the people we represent, the session players and orchestral players,' said John Smith, the union's general secretary. 'The stars are nowhere without the backing singers and musicians. It is a business which is very fragile. The whole ecology of the music industry depends on our defeating piracy.'

This latest wave of lawsuits is yet more evidence that the record industry will not relent in its campaign against music sharing, based on its insistence that the unauthorised swapping (which it prefers to call piracy) of MP3s and the like is responsible for a major decline in the level of CD sales over the last few years.

However its figures have, not for the first time, been disputed for being as reliant on statistical trickery as plain truth. That CD album revenues have declined is not called into question, but the number of CDs sold remains fairly consistent. It is prices that have fallen. You could argue that with prices falling you would expect sales to rise, ergo file sharing must have had some effect. You cannot however ignore other factors that inflated CD sales in the past, not least the cycle of people replacing their vinyl LPs, a cycle which may be nearing its end.

Undoubtedly CD single sales have fallen, and file sharing must take some responsibility for that. Nonetheless it is not alone; the record labels themselves should shoulder some of the blame. CD singles are expensive and rarely contain anything of note that isn't on the album, and the labels have so manipulated the charts, TV and radio to ensure maximum exposure for whichever pop act they are ruthlessly exploiting at the time.

Since the decline of the seven-inch vinyl single and 'proper' b-sides, the single has existed as little more than a promotional tool. Arguably, that job is now being done via file sharing.

Some research appears to support the argument that file sharing has only a very limited affect on sale, including studies by two US universities.

Felix Oberholzer-Gee of the Harvard Business School and Koleman Strumpf of the University of North Carolina tracked 1.75 million downloads in 2002, comparing them with concurrent album sales.

'We find that file sharing has only a limited effect on record sales,' they reported. 'The economic effect is also small.'

They added that, 'While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing.'