The RIAA, the company that people seem to love to hate, is claiming that it’s “contained” the issue of P2P song sharing.
“The problem has not been eliminated,” said association CEO Mitch Bainwol. “But we believe digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business, and file-trading is flat.”
Bainwol’s statement has been widely criticized, with some going so far as to compare it to President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” Iraq photo op.
Nevertheless, the music industry has been surprisingly effective at controlling the digital distribution of mainstream music. After years of legal battles, cease and desist letters and lawsuits, many of most popular sites for P2P song downloading have been shut down, legitimate options are available and growing in popularity and no businesses have emerged that threaten the industry’s approach.
While many of the music sharing sites are gone, file sharing is still a popular way for many people to get music. Eric Garland, CEO of Internet measurement firm BigChampagne, says that more people than ever are using file-sharing networks. “Nearly 10 million people are online, swapping media, at any given time,” he says. That May figure is up from 8.7 million people in 2005, he says.
What’s different now, though, is that the music industry has eliminated businesses built around P2P music sharing. This is a long-term strategy of the RIAA, to maintain their control over how music is exposed and distributed.
As the RIAA crows about its success at containing the threat of illegal file sharing, legal sharing of music of indie tracks is becoming more and more popular as a way for bands to promote themselves. What remains to be seen is whether this will, in the long term, pose a bigger threat to the mainstream recording industry.
via USATODAY.com
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