The Wall Street Journal reports that the Recording Industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.
After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry, this decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy which had opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003.
Critics say the legal offensive ultimately did little to stem the tide of illegally downloaded music. It created a public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl.
The new initiative relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers with the Recording Industry Association of America. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider’s customers making music available online for others to take.
The ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file-sharing, they will get one or two more emails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.
Read the full story Wall Street Journal
Here’s some great news for when Bluegrass Music makes it to the Ringtone Download Top 40.
Songwriters and music publishers say they’re pleased with a U.S. Copyright Royalty Board ruling issued Thursday that sets a higher rate for ringtones but keeps a 9.1-cents mechanical royalty on all other music, including compact discs and digital download services.
The board set a 24-cent royalty on downloads of musical ringtones for cell phones, which were expected to bring in $510 million in retail sales in 2008, according to BMI. Those royalties previously had been included in the 9.1-cent rate, but the songwriters wanted an increase and got more than they had asked for, said Steve Bogard, president of the Nashville Songwriters Association International.
Read the full story in the Tennessean
The following story from a report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on music file sharing:
In September 2003, the recording industry sued 261 American music fans for sharing songs on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks, kicking off an unprecedented legal campaign against the people that should be the recording industry’s best customers – music fans.
In the five years after that landmark initiative, the recording industry has filed, settled, or threatened legal actions against some 30,000 people. These have included children, grandparents, unemployed single mothers, college professors—a random selection from the millions of Americans who have used P2P networks. New lawsuits are filed monthly and now they are supplemented by a flood of “pre-litigation” settlement letters that are designed to extract settlements without any need to enter a courtroom.
But suing music fans has proven to be ineffective in stopping unauthorized P2P file-sharing. Downloading from P2P networks is more popular than ever, despite the widespread public awareness of lawsuits. The campaign of legal processes has not resulted in any royalties to artists. One thing has become clear: suing music fans is no answer to the P2P dilemma.
Read the full report: RIAA v. The People: Five Years Later
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