Internet File-Sharing Bigger Than Record Business?

from the fightin'-words dept

During some hearings about online file sharing, someone claimed that the online file sharing "industry" is now larger than the music industry itself. Of course, no details are given to explain what the hell they meant by that statement. It's certainly not in terms of revenue. If anything, it would probably be in "number of songs", but again, how do you count such a thing? Is a downloaded song equal to one purchased song on a CD? If so, it shouldn't be. People may download the same song multiple times using a file sharing service (they might not save it to their hard drive) but are likely to buy a song only once. Plus, many people use file sharing like they use radio - to experiment and listen to new songs. Does this claim count every song people hear on the radio? Clearly, it was said because it makes a good quote - but it has little basis in reality. The rest of the article, though, has random quotes from both sides on the debate. The RIAA is there whining about how they're losing money. However, a lobbyist for Kazaa has the correct comeback, saying the debate really has nothing to do with "piracy", but is about how the music industry completely missed the boat on a new distribution method. Update: It's interesting to contrast the article linked above with one from LA which has a much more obvious pro-Hollywood bias. They leave out the comments that play negatively on the entertainment industry, and refer to all file-sharing as "piracy", and make other statements that mislead readers into missing the real issue.

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