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16
Jul 03
Wed

Digital Music Piracy

SMH Article: “The record industry says it is disturbed by a study showing more than half of young Australians are unaware that “burning” music CDs and swapping songs online is illegal.”

For heaven’s sake, if that is surprising to ARIA, the execs there are severely out of touch with society. Even for the older generation, having kids should be notice enough that music piracy is rampant. The same problems have plagued the computer software industry ever since its inception and we don’t hear them complaining of their imminent collapse at the hands of the pirating hordes. It is incredible that ARIA is suddenly so worried.

Law is only effective if it is (1) known and (2) enforced. Music piracy, bar one current case, has never given rise to criminal prosecutions in Australia. As a result, piracy is widespread as there are no repercussions. Even if we also assume that people are genuinely unaware that it is illegal (come on, everyone knows copying music is wrong, but it seems less wrong than theft of physical goods), enforcement is a good way of “publicising” the law, as ignorance of the law is no excuse for violating it. The fact is, digital piracy is easy, free, does not visibly deprive people of anything physical, and proceeds unhindered. Music CDs are the opposite. When CDs are stolen, it is more the theft of the actual physical good, rather than the intellectual property contained on the CD, that is thought of as the crime by the layperson – even though the intellectual property contained on the CD is responsible for the majority of the labelled price.

People have been saying this for years: The music industry needs to address the piracy issue differently. They try to publicise that piracy is illegal, but people don’t listen because no one gets busted for piracy. They then try to publicise piracy’s illegality by enforcing the law. The problem with this is that the customer base for music piracy is made up of a gigantic number of small consumers (many under 18). Picking on individual users is likely to cause resentment among the music community, and perhaps may increase the levels of piracy as a knee-jerk reaction. You’re only going to be prosecuted if you get caught, and for 99% of us, getting caught by ARIA is unlikely.

Other models, such as Apple’s iTunes service, where music can be purchased digitally online for micropayments, while not removing the prevalence of piracy, will certainly mitigate it. Piracy cannot be eradicated, the recording industry should accept that. There are always people who will steal if they can get away with it (and I know of no one without at least one illegal MP3 on their computer). Instead, they should be turning their attention to alternative ways to bring people back to paying for music, and that means addressing why people currently find buying their music unattractive.

I have no problem with the idea of music piracy being illegal. Intellectual property should be protected. I only take issue with how the problem is being addressed, though I don’t deny that there is no easy or completely satisfactory solution to this.

This post has 3 comments

1.  teldak

The fact that the law is not being in enforced is why no one pays attention to it. Look at our situation here in the US. The RIAA (I think they’re the equivalent to the ARIA) finally got that clue. Of late we’ve seen probably at least three dozen well publicized cases, mainly of servers. They actually are going after people who are causing them significant harm, those who host many many more MP3s than a normal person might.

If you wouldn’t mind, what kinds of legislation are being enacted with what effects on what issues solely to keep music protected in Australia? In America, the likes of Senator (D for Disney) Fritz Hollings and such in our Congress, well in the pockets of major coporations, are attempting everything to allow the RIAA to do as it pleases to stop file sharers.

I think one of the main reasons for not wanting to pay for CDs is that people are lazy. Simple thing. They don’t want to interrupt their scheduled day to go buy something they have been told is an extraneous item by the media. Some will say it is too expensive. Indeed, when CD-Rs cost the public cents per CD-R on a spindle, burning is massively cheaper, allows for replayability in practically every new device, and, most importantly, a playlist you pick. CDs in America rarely dip below 13USD. I have purchased ONE CD in the past four years at a retail store that was under 13USD (FYI: It was Seether’s “Disclaimer” unedited for 9USD. pain to find unedited, finding it so cheap was amazing). Everything else breaks the bank at 17USD and such.

I, in no way, am trying to justify my theft. I think, though, that most don’t consider it theft because you can’t feel the music with your hands (while, at least, not without a suber :P), it’s not material, it’s not…oh, where is the word, it is intangible. When you play it, it exists. When you don’t play it, you barely know it exists.

2.  Bonhomme de Neige

As a would-be survey methodoligist (I work at the ABS in the Methodology Divisio), I have to say that “study” sounds very dodgy. If the question on the survey is phrased the way the statistic they quote suggests (“Are you aware that burning … is illegal?”), then most young ppl would realise that they do it, and subconsciously avoid admitting to doing something illegal. The first response of a child when caught in the act of doing something bad is “I didn’t know it was bad”. So such a question would have significant response bias (people would lie on the form). If the question was phrased differently then the quoted statistic should reflect that. Finally what is the actual estimate? For a statistic to be reliable at least that should be quoted … ideally an RSE or confidence interval but that only happens in a statistician’s dream world. It’s quite common practice in the media to get an estimate of 28%, with a 95% confidence interval of 2% – 54% (I can’t imagine too many kids willingly doing this survey so the sampling error would be huge), and then say “more than half” or “up to 54%” … it’s misleading but makes better media tripe.

I find it hard to believe that so many “young people” really didn’t know that it was illegal … sure they may do it, and they don’t think of it as wilfully breaking the law.. but most people surely know. The population can’t be that ignorant … can it… ?

3.  Pete

Yeah good point.

Interesting posts on Slashdot about this in the past 2 days also. Apparently 2 US Senators have called for the uploading of copied files to P2P networks, a federal offence carrying a 250k fine and up to a 5 year jail sentence.

Agreed, copying music is illegal, an infringement of copyright.

I just don’t have the slightest inclination to feel sorry for the RIAA and the ARIA when they cry poor over lost revenue.

Give us some decent artists instead of the same old boy band neighbors-bred shite.

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