Let's Face It: File-Sharing Is Now an Unstoppable Mainstream Activity

Some good points from TechDirt:

By now, many of you have probably read about Musicmetrics' new Digital Music Index. Musicmetrics took a whole bunch of filesharing data and approximated the location of each downloader in order to get a better understanding of who shares music. What it found isn't really surprising. A whole lot of people download music. While that in itself is marginally interesting, what is even more interesting is the idea that music filesharing has become mainstream.

With the numbers and locations that the index shows, you can see that despite the harsh penalties imposed on those caught filesharing, people still don't care.

The data shows just how mainstream filesharing is now. It isn't just members of Anonymous sitting behind their Macbooks downloading the obscure doom metal of Sunn O)))) the culprits are your next door neighbours, your relatives, your own kids and perhaps (probably) even you. That's the problem for the record labels who, along with the government, have tried to stigmatise the practice as much as possible. But those who have grown up getting whatever music they want for free are not suddenly going to become nostalgic vinyl-heads who are willing to pay £11.99 for a CD – to them it makes no sense and the rose-tinted memories of buying a physical record from an actual person don't exist. And the message that filesharing is stealing and equal with nicking a car doesn't hold much water when so many people are busy doing it.

There are some good thoughts here.  You should read it all.

Meanwhile, Canada is among the top countries in the world for illegal downloading.  Is this you?

Comments

[scottyoh]

Downloading music for free is the best advertising any artist can have. Look at the idea of freemium games, you give the user nearly the entire product for free let them use it and love it, and when they want more they will support them. The entire mindset created by studios and recording labels has always been wrong and selfish and detrimental.

[Ryan]

Filesharing to one, is piracy to another. The whole music industry is confused, just a person confused about his/her sexuality