Music Publisher Says To Leave File Sharers Alone

Say That Again

from the does-someone-get-it? dept

It looks like there are a few people within the music industry who are beginning to understand. Ellis Rich, the head of music publisher Independent Music Group, told a music industry roundtable that they should stop comparing file sharing to piracy, and that, “ultimately this could be good for the music industry.” He argues that the real pirates are the crime syndicates making fake CDs and selling them, but that those who use file sharing are getting all of the attention. He worries that this is taking away from enforcement efforts on the real pirates. He also thinks that file sharing will force musicians to (gasp!) write better music, rather than writing a few good songs and padding the rest of an album with crap. Meanwhile, BusinessWeek is basically saying the same thing. They’re telling bands that can’t handle the idea of people downloading a single song to get over it and to write better songs.