Music Industry Embraces Peer To peer technology

Remember when Napstar and Kazaa were like secret words passed around in code by teens at risk of getting busted by their parents for downloading music for free online? While parents for the most part were more concerned about protecting their computers, even then we understood that file sharing was the next big thing to take
the IT world by storm and any attempts to contain it were futile.

The music industry, dominated at the time by the "big four" namely Sony Music Entertainment, Universal, EMI and Warner accepted no such pretext as they watched music sales drop from approximately $38 billion to $32 billion over the same
three year period that P2P software was launched.

While we felt for the poor artists who were no doubt being short changed in royalties, we all knew it was the guys at the top who were suffering the most, calling foul play in the names of the musicians they represented. No one cared that much,record producing suits never impressed sixteen year olds, who just want to listen to music without having to work hard for cash that's hard to come by.

My teenage daughter shrugged her shoulders saying music like love should be free, and off she went to download her favorite song. Even though legal action was being taken against students on campus's across the states, kids and even the odd parent, continued to download music for free. As much as the cost, it was the form that was so tempting. You could download your favorite songs and not be held ransom by
the record companies packaging of single hits on expensive albums filled with songs nobody wanted to listen to.

In a paper presented at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, September 2008, Mark Cooper, Directorof research presented the following idea. He suggested that the dramatic decline in record sales had less to do with piracy and more to do
with the natural changes brought about by the technology ,ie. Consumer demand for singles over albums. He proposed that "technological change shifts the balance of interest between private rights and social goals and frequently triggers"piracy panics," wherein the gatekeepers of content feel the financial security
of their intellectual property is at risk. These panics play out in furious legal battles."

What followed was exactly that - a series of 'furious legal battles' between the music industry and peer to peer software companies, such as Napstar and Kazaa. What was most surprising was the media's lack of support for the technology that would ultimately be embraced. An older generation of reporters backed an even more out touch record industry who refused to acknowledge that peer to peer software was already embedded in the consumer psyche, and that no amount of money wasted in messy court cases could prevent its use.

Kids continued file sharing, new content sharing sites emerged,and even though Napstar and Kazaa lost their battle in court, the war on the frontier of technology vs piracy was won - with record companies now embracing the technology that once threatened its very existence. Peer to peer software is now being developed to
redirect traffic to legal music files for downloading.

Will my kids stop downloading music for free, probably not, but if the software proves to be able to redirect traffic from other harmful sites where illicit files are shared in the same way it redirects consumers to legal music download sites, the great battle will have been worth it. Perhaps then the media will get on board and support the inevitable fact that we have to work with what we have not against it.

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