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Holtz Communications + Technology

Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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P2P: The new FM

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is so distressed that people are downloading music without paying for it that they have adopted the intriguing tactic of suing their customers. It’s the only way, they insist, they can persuade people to abandon the copyright infringement inherent in grabbing music from peer-to-peer (P2P) networks like Kazaa. The RIAA estimates file sharing has cost the industry millions of dollars.

The numbers are bogus. It’s easy to estimate the number of files downloaded and multiply by what the downloader would have spent to buy the same music. But it doesn’t account for all the people who download so they can listen in order to decide what to buy.

For my daughter and her peer group, Kazaa is the new FM radio. They make recommendations to one another (usually over instant messaging, of course), download the files, then purchase what they like. God knows FM radio doesn’t give them the variety it once did, not since media consolidation has renderedindependent stations all but obsolete, resulting in mind-numbingly similar corporate-mandated playlists for virtually all stations.

My daughter’s behavior can’t be unique. But I never had the means to test that theory. At least, I never thought to create the means. But somebody has. The File Sharing Experiment is a collaborative Web site where downloaders are encouraged to share their try-then-buy experiences. So far, nearly 6,000 items have been recorded with a value of nearly $310,000.

Of course, this i’s hardly a statistically valid approach to assessing the amount of money the recording industry hasn’t lost. Some people may be lying, which would reduce the number. On the other hand, tens of thousands of people who have downloaded-and-bought don’t even know about the site, making the grand total ridiculously low.

Typical posts read like these:

“Every track downloaded was quality so bought the album.”
“Showed the game to my mother. She loved it, so I bought it for her.”
“I had never listened to this artist before, downloaded the entire album, loved it and bought it because it was so good. “
“Downloaded a couple of tracks that I heard on TV, ended up buying four more CDs.”
“Found out about her online, downloaded some tracks, and then bought the album. “
“I really like the band and bought the album, after listening to it first, to support them.”

There are, of course, plenty of people who are downloading and not paying. It would be nice, though, to hear a little balance from the RIAA, and even nicer to see the industry recognize this new means of evaluating music and leveraging it instead of trying to shut it down.

I’d also like to see world peace and an end to hunger.

12/22/04 | 0 Comments | P2P: The new FM

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