2008 Woodie Awards
File sharing crackdown: Is it for the music or the money?
Chris Carter
Issue date:
10/24/07
Section:
Opinion
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In 1984, the case,
Sony Corp of America v.
Universal Studios, Inc., better
known as the "Betamax
case," opened up a can of
worms within the recording
industry. This case was
brought forward because
entertainment companies
felt time-shifting, or
recording programs onto a
storage medium for use at
a later time for the consumer,
was infringing on
copyright laws. Ultimately,
the court decided that formats
like Betamax and later
VHS were fair use, and the
companies that produced
devices for recording were
not liable for infringement.
1984 came and went, as
does technology. However,
we are still facing the same
arguments and lawsuit
litigations as were present
in the Betamax case and
not much ground has been
made either way.
The standing claim with
record and other promotional
companies is that
peer-to-peer networks and
file sharing in general, is
hurting the artists, alleging
that they are losing money
from a decrease in record
sales.
The Recording Industry
Association of America
seems to have a vendetta
against anyone and everyone
who downloads music
illegally, suing sometimes
hundreds of people at a
time.
Whether you believe or
want to believe that file
sharing and trading music
files is right or wrong is
for you to decide, but the
real issue is whether the
RIAA's claims of CD sales
dropping and lost revenue
across the board is of a substantial
nature.
A study that was
released in 2004 looked
into the effect of file sharing
on record sales. This
study commenced during
the height of the RIAA's
outbreak of lawsuits and
concluded that file sharing
had little or no negative
impact on record sales.
"We find that file sharing
has no statistically
significant effect on purchases
of the average
album in our sample," said
Felix Oberholzer-Gee and
Koleman Strumpf, the two
Sony Corp of America v.
Universal Studios, Inc., better
known as the "Betamax
case," opened up a can of
worms within the recording
industry. This case was
brought forward because
entertainment companies
felt time-shifting, or
recording programs onto a
storage medium for use at
a later time for the consumer,
was infringing on
copyright laws. Ultimately,
the court decided that formats
like Betamax and later
VHS were fair use, and the
companies that produced
devices for recording were
not liable for infringement.
1984 came and went, as
does technology. However,
we are still facing the same
arguments and lawsuit
litigations as were present
in the Betamax case and
not much ground has been
made either way.
The standing claim with
record and other promotional
companies is that
peer-to-peer networks and
file sharing in general, is
hurting the artists, alleging
that they are losing money
from a decrease in record
sales.
The Recording Industry
Association of America
seems to have a vendetta
against anyone and everyone
who downloads music
illegally, suing sometimes
hundreds of people at a
time.
Whether you believe or
want to believe that file
sharing and trading music
files is right or wrong is
for you to decide, but the
real issue is whether the
RIAA's claims of CD sales
dropping and lost revenue
across the board is of a substantial
nature.
A study that was
released in 2004 looked
into the effect of file sharing
on record sales. This
study commenced during
the height of the RIAA's
outbreak of lawsuits and
concluded that file sharing
had little or no negative
impact on record sales.
"We find that file sharing
has no statistically
significant effect on purchases
of the average
album in our sample," said
Felix Oberholzer-Gee and
Koleman Strumpf, the two
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