Music File Sharers Keep Sharing - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Glad-I-Ate-Her · 09-19-2003, 12:12 PM

Music File Sharers Keep Sharing
By AMY HARMON with JOHN SCHWARTZ
New York Times

Despite the lawsuits filed last week against 261 people accused of illicitly distributing music over the Internet, millions of others continue to copy and share songs without paying for them.

Last week, more than four million Americans used KaZaA, the most popular file-sharing software, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, only about 5 percent fewer than the week before the record industry's lawsuits became big news. One smaller service, iMesh, even experienced a slight uptick in users.

The sweeping legal campaign appears to be educating some file swappers who did not think they were breaking the law and scaring some of those who did. But the barrage of lawsuits has also highlighted a stark break between the legal status of file sharing in the United States and the apparent cultural consensus on its morality.

In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted this week, only 36 percent of those responding said file swapping was never acceptable. That helps explain why the pop radio hit "Right Thurr," by Chingy, was available to download free from 3.5 million American personal computers last week, while two million file swappers in the United States shared songs from rock icons like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, according to the tracking company Big Champagne.

The persistent lack of guilt over online copying suggests that the record industry's antipiracy campaign, billed as a last-ditch effort to reverse a protracted sales slump, is only the beginning of the difficult process of persuading large numbers of people to buy music again.

Mitch Bainwol, the new chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America, which brought the suits, said in an interview that the group had succeeded in communicating that file sharing is illegal and would have consequences. But he acknowledged that shifting attitudes would be the next battle in what he conceded was more an effort to contain file swapping than to wipe it out.

"It's a two-step process," he said. "I don't think anyone has an expectation that file-sharing becomes extinct. What we're trying to drive for is an environment in which legitimate online music can flourish."

The record industry argues that sharing songs online is just like stealing a CD from a record store. But to many Americans, file sharing seems more like taping a song off a radio. The truth, copyright experts say, may lie somewhere between.

And instead of significantly damping enthusiasm for file sharing, the record industry's lawsuits appear to be spurring increasingly sharp debates about how the balance between the rights of copyright holders and those of copyright users should be redefined for a digital age.

"Law, technology and ethics are not in sync right now," said Senator Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican who has called a hearing on the subject for later this month. "I presume these lawsuits are having some impact, but they're not solving the problem."

Soli Shin of Manhattan is not waiting for lawmakers to act. She gave some thought to the ethics of file sharing after hearing of the lawsuits and took her own library of 1,094 songs offline, because she knew they were aimed at people who "share" their music files with others. But she saw no reason to stop getting new music for herself.

"It's really a great convenience," Ms. Shin, 13, said. "If I like what I download maybe I'll buy it."

According to The Times/CBS News poll, adults under 30 are more inclined to consider music sharing over the Internet to be acceptable: 29 percent of them say the practice is acceptable at all times, compared with 9 percent of people older than that.

But the file-sharing trend, which includes many school-age people, has spread across nearly every demographic group, with 27 percent of Internet users between the ages of 30 and 49 involved, according to a survey released in July by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Even 12 percent of those over the age of 50 participate in file sharing, the survey found.

Pew also found that among the 35 million adults that its survey indicated download music, 23 million said they did not much care about the copyright on the files they copied onto their computers. Among the 26 million who made files available for others to copy, 17 million did not care much about whether they were copyrighted.

In interviews last week, many file swappers said they were more wary of copying music since the wave of lawsuits was announced. But there was a strong current of defiance, even among those who said they had stopped.

Dr. Steve Vaughan, 35, a Manhattan physician who said he had downloaded about 2,000 songs over the Internet in recent years, said he stopped only because of the "fear factor" after hearing about the lawsuits. He said he might try one of the new legal online music services, though he doubted it would enable him to sample as wide a range of jazz, blues and folk to help him decide what to buy on CD.

Those options may be expanding. In addition to Apple Computer's iTunes and a new legal service called BuyMusic that recently began selling songs online for 99 cents, several competing online music stores are set to open this fall.

"If they give me a full selection, and I could sample what I want and it was well organized, I would love that," Dr. Vaughan said. "I'm not doing this to save money. I'm doing this because the music industry doesn't give me what I want."

At the root of the resistance for many — besides a perhaps decisive fondness for getting things free — is a complaint that the record industry is trying to take away the ability to make copies of music to use personally and to share with friends — a practice that Americans have long enjoyed.

Added to that is a deep-seated resentment of the big record labels, which music fans variously accuse of pricing CD's too high and producing too much bad music.

But Siva Vaidhyanathan, director of communications studies at New York University, said he told his students that distaste for record company practices was not a justification for making unauthorized copies of their music.

"If everyone would cool down the rhetoric we might actually have some helpful discussions," Professor Vaidhyanathan said.

"It would be nice to stop demonizing people who think they're doing reasonable legitimate things in their homes and stop demonizing people who are trying to make a living and recoup an investment," he added.

Society, Mr. Vaidhyanathan added, has to reconcile the desire to make personal copies with the new ability to make millions of perfect copies with the click of a mouse. "Suddenly we have this powerful copying technology in our own homes, and we haven't confronted exactly what it means."

The largest number of respondents to The Times/CBS News poll, 44 percent, said sharing music files over the Internet was sometimes acceptable, if a person shared music from a purchased CD with a limited number of friends or acquaintances. Conducted by telephone on Monday and Tuesday this week among 675 adults, the margin of sampling error in the poll was plus or minus four percentage points.

Lorraine Sullivan, a student at Hunter College in New York, paid $2,500 to the record industry association earlier this week to settle the lawsuit it filed against her. But she said she still saw nothing wrong with her use of file-sharing software. She downloaded Madonna songs that she already had on CD, for instance, so that she could have them on her computer and not have to change CD's while she cleaned her apartment.

"I still feel that if you use downloading to sample a CD or a song and you go buy the CD, it's O.K.," said Ms. Sullivan, who has set up her own Web site asking for donations to help pay her fine.

Fear of being sued or fined can help shape a new moral sensibility — as happened with sexual harassment laws, seat belt requirements and no- smoking laws — despite considerable initial public skepticism. Some legal experts and ethicists say the music industry's enforcement of copyright law against Internet file sharers may eventually catalyze a similar change in attitudes.

But many experts argue that legal prohibition alone is rarely effective in getting people to behave differently if it runs counter to strong societal beliefs.

"When efforts to ban behavior fail, like with the Prohibition, they may need to be changed," said Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University in Washington.

Several legislators, including Senator Coleman, have called for a re-examination of the notion of "personal copying." Some critics have have suggested that Congress could force the record companies to license their material and find a way to tax Internet users to pay them, essentially legalizing file sharing.

The number of Americans using KaZaA, the leading file-sharing software, from home has dropped about 15 percent since late June, when the record industry announced its plans to sue suspected copyright violators, Nielsen/NetRatings said.

"This slide down over a short period of time coincides with the record industry's effort to lower the boom on its users," said Greg Bloom, a senior analyst with Nielsen. "But there are still a lot of people using these services."

Software like KaZaA, Morpheus, Grokster and iMesh lets Internet users find and retrieve files on one another's computers, rather than from a central Web site. To "share" songs on peer-to-peer networks, users put them into a folder on their computer that they open to others. Others searching for those titles can then download copies onto their PC's.

"The record industry needs to win back the hearts and minds of record buyers, because they can't win a technology war," said Eric Garland, Big Champagne's chief executive.

Meanwhile, many recalcitrant file swappers are simply sizing up the odds: "How many people are they suing?" asked Carlo Lutz, 13, a Bronx High School of Science student, who was listening to rap music he had uploaded to his MP3 player on the subway last Thursday.

"There are millions of us," he added. "It's only a drop in the bucket."

Glad

floonine · 09-19-2003, 12:39 PM

I don't know what to think of this whole issue. I wish all music was free for everybody, but I would hate for musicians to have live off of appreciation only... of course musicians making too much money... dammit, my head hurts.

peacy · 09-19-2003, 12:44 PM

I'm not sure if the musicians are making too much money... Maybe...
But I'm sure that the record companies are making too much...
They're the ones setting the price so the really good selling albums will pay for the loss 'caused by the non-profitable ones... (I believe this ratio is 10%:90%

)

I'm not saying music should be free. But I'm not gonna pay for crap. And downloading music is the best test. Like it -> gonna buy it. (For sure.)

EeOh1 · 09-19-2003, 02:04 PM

Peacy, the try it and buy it test deal is certainly an arguable one, and I think you taking that route is best - for you and artists.

I can understand artists' anger - they're losing money. But geeze, the RIAA is absolutely insane. The example of the 12 year old girl whose family paid 2,000 bucks just bugs the hell out of me. They even paid 30 bucks for Kazaa. 2,000 bucks that could have been used towards her education or food. Grrr.

GakFace · 09-19-2003, 02:19 PM

Yeah I go the same route Peacy has. I have music, and if I really like the group, I get some of their CDs.. but I don't have much in the way of money, and when they cost $15-$23 , its kinda hard to buy CD's as much as I'd like to. I did recently buy 4 CDs.. and that racked in 65 bucks.. You can sure as hell believe me when I say I don't plan on doing that again.

LutherMac · 09-19-2003, 05:14 PM

I personally refuse to pay $15-$20 for CDs. Especially with the fact that of that, the artist gets mere pennies. Personally, since all of this has been going down, most of my music purchases have been from independant labels and MP3.com. While I don't beleive music should be free, I do think that it should be affordable for the average consumer. I just wish the RIAA would get their act together and do something meaningful, rather stealing money from artists to pay for stupid lawsuits.

09-19-2003, 12:12 PM	#1 (permalink)
Glad-I-Ate-Her Junkie Location: 1 mile from Ground Zero	Music File Sharers Keep Sharing Music File Sharers Keep Sharing By AMY HARMON with JOHN SCHWARTZ New York Times Despite the lawsuits filed last week against 261 people accused of illicitly distributing music over the Internet, millions of others continue to copy and share songs without paying for them. Last week, more than four million Americans used KaZaA, the most popular file-sharing software, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, only about 5 percent fewer than the week before the record industry's lawsuits became big news. One smaller service, iMesh, even experienced a slight uptick in users. The sweeping legal campaign appears to be educating some file swappers who did not think they were breaking the law and scaring some of those who did. But the barrage of lawsuits has also highlighted a stark break between the legal status of file sharing in the United States and the apparent cultural consensus on its morality. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted this week, only 36 percent of those responding said file swapping was never acceptable. That helps explain why the pop radio hit "Right Thurr," by Chingy, was available to download free from 3.5 million American personal computers last week, while two million file swappers in the United States shared songs from rock icons like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, according to the tracking company Big Champagne. The persistent lack of guilt over online copying suggests that the record industry's antipiracy campaign, billed as a last-ditch effort to reverse a protracted sales slump, is only the beginning of the difficult process of persuading large numbers of people to buy music again. Mitch Bainwol, the new chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America, which brought the suits, said in an interview that the group had succeeded in communicating that file sharing is illegal and would have consequences. But he acknowledged that shifting attitudes would be the next battle in what he conceded was more an effort to contain file swapping than to wipe it out. "It's a two-step process," he said. "I don't think anyone has an expectation that file-sharing becomes extinct. What we're trying to drive for is an environment in which legitimate online music can flourish." The record industry argues that sharing songs online is just like stealing a CD from a record store. But to many Americans, file sharing seems more like taping a song off a radio. The truth, copyright experts say, may lie somewhere between. And instead of significantly damping enthusiasm for file sharing, the record industry's lawsuits appear to be spurring increasingly sharp debates about how the balance between the rights of copyright holders and those of copyright users should be redefined for a digital age. "Law, technology and ethics are not in sync right now," said Senator Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican who has called a hearing on the subject for later this month. "I presume these lawsuits are having some impact, but they're not solving the problem." Soli Shin of Manhattan is not waiting for lawmakers to act. She gave some thought to the ethics of file sharing after hearing of the lawsuits and took her own library of 1,094 songs offline, because she knew they were aimed at people who "share" their music files with others. But she saw no reason to stop getting new music for herself. "It's really a great convenience," Ms. Shin, 13, said. "If I like what I download maybe I'll buy it." According to The Times/CBS News poll, adults under 30 are more inclined to consider music sharing over the Internet to be acceptable: 29 percent of them say the practice is acceptable at all times, compared with 9 percent of people older than that. But the file-sharing trend, which includes many school-age people, has spread across nearly every demographic group, with 27 percent of Internet users between the ages of 30 and 49 involved, according to a survey released in July by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Even 12 percent of those over the age of 50 participate in file sharing, the survey found. Pew also found that among the 35 million adults that its survey indicated download music, 23 million said they did not much care about the copyright on the files they copied onto their computers. Among the 26 million who made files available for others to copy, 17 million did not care much about whether they were copyrighted. In interviews last week, many file swappers said they were more wary of copying music since the wave of lawsuits was announced. But there was a strong current of defiance, even among those who said they had stopped. Dr. Steve Vaughan, 35, a Manhattan physician who said he had downloaded about 2,000 songs over the Internet in recent years, said he stopped only because of the "fear factor" after hearing about the lawsuits. He said he might try one of the new legal online music services, though he doubted it would enable him to sample as wide a range of jazz, blues and folk to help him decide what to buy on CD. Those options may be expanding. In addition to Apple Computer's iTunes and a new legal service called BuyMusic that recently began selling songs online for 99 cents, several competing online music stores are set to open this fall. "If they give me a full selection, and I could sample what I want and it was well organized, I would love that," Dr. Vaughan said. "I'm not doing this to save money. I'm doing this because the music industry doesn't give me what I want." At the root of the resistance for many — besides a perhaps decisive fondness for getting things free — is a complaint that the record industry is trying to take away the ability to make copies of music to use personally and to share with friends — a practice that Americans have long enjoyed. Added to that is a deep-seated resentment of the big record labels, which music fans variously accuse of pricing CD's too high and producing too much bad music. But Siva Vaidhyanathan, director of communications studies at New York University, said he told his students that distaste for record company practices was not a justification for making unauthorized copies of their music. "If everyone would cool down the rhetoric we might actually have some helpful discussions," Professor Vaidhyanathan said. "It would be nice to stop demonizing people who think they're doing reasonable legitimate things in their homes and stop demonizing people who are trying to make a living and recoup an investment," he added. Society, Mr. Vaidhyanathan added, has to reconcile the desire to make personal copies with the new ability to make millions of perfect copies with the click of a mouse. "Suddenly we have this powerful copying technology in our own homes, and we haven't confronted exactly what it means." The largest number of respondents to The Times/CBS News poll, 44 percent, said sharing music files over the Internet was sometimes acceptable, if a person shared music from a purchased CD with a limited number of friends or acquaintances. Conducted by telephone on Monday and Tuesday this week among 675 adults, the margin of sampling error in the poll was plus or minus four percentage points. Lorraine Sullivan, a student at Hunter College in New York, paid $2,500 to the record industry association earlier this week to settle the lawsuit it filed against her. But she said she still saw nothing wrong with her use of file-sharing software. She downloaded Madonna songs that she already had on CD, for instance, so that she could have them on her computer and not have to change CD's while she cleaned her apartment. "I still feel that if you use downloading to sample a CD or a song and you go buy the CD, it's O.K.," said Ms. Sullivan, who has set up her own Web site asking for donations to help pay her fine. Fear of being sued or fined can help shape a new moral sensibility — as happened with sexual harassment laws, seat belt requirements and no- smoking laws — despite considerable initial public skepticism. Some legal experts and ethicists say the music industry's enforcement of copyright law against Internet file sharers may eventually catalyze a similar change in attitudes. But many experts argue that legal prohibition alone is rarely effective in getting people to behave differently if it runs counter to strong societal beliefs. "When efforts to ban behavior fail, like with the Prohibition, they may need to be changed," said Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University in Washington. Several legislators, including Senator Coleman, have called for a re-examination of the notion of "personal copying." Some critics have have suggested that Congress could force the record companies to license their material and find a way to tax Internet users to pay them, essentially legalizing file sharing. The number of Americans using KaZaA, the leading file-sharing software, from home has dropped about 15 percent since late June, when the record industry announced its plans to sue suspected copyright violators, Nielsen/NetRatings said. "This slide down over a short period of time coincides with the record industry's effort to lower the boom on its users," said Greg Bloom, a senior analyst with Nielsen. "But there are still a lot of people using these services." Software like KaZaA, Morpheus, Grokster and iMesh lets Internet users find and retrieve files on one another's computers, rather than from a central Web site. To "share" songs on peer-to-peer networks, users put them into a folder on their computer that they open to others. Others searching for those titles can then download copies onto their PC's. "The record industry needs to win back the hearts and minds of record buyers, because they can't win a technology war," said Eric Garland, Big Champagne's chief executive. Meanwhile, many recalcitrant file swappers are simply sizing up the odds: "How many people are they suing?" asked Carlo Lutz, 13, a Bronx High School of Science student, who was listening to rap music he had uploaded to his MP3 player on the subway last Thursday. "There are millions of us," he added. "It's only a drop in the bucket." Glad __________________ I'm "Glad I Ate Her" because the payback was worth it!!

09-19-2003, 12:39 PM	#2 (permalink)
floonine Insane Location: Silicon Valley, Utah	I don't know what to think of this whole issue. I wish all music was free for everybody, but I would hate for musicians to have live off of appreciation only... of course musicians making too much money... dammit, my head hurts. __________________ Political arguments do not exist, after all, for people to believe in them, rather they serve as a common, agreed-upon excuse. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest and finish finally and infamously as heretics.

09-19-2003, 02:04 PM	#4 (permalink)
EeOh1 Crazy	Peacy, the try it and buy it test deal is certainly an arguable one, and I think you taking that route is best - for you and artists. I can understand artists' anger - they're losing money. But geeze, the RIAA is absolutely insane. The example of the 12 year old girl whose family paid 2,000 bucks just bugs the hell out of me. They even paid 30 bucks for Kazaa. 2,000 bucks that could have been used towards her education or food. Grrr. __________________ If life gives you lemons...throw them at someone.

09-19-2003, 02:19 PM	#5 (permalink)
GakFace Go Ninja, Go Ninja Go!! Location: IN, USA	Yeah I go the same route Peacy has. I have music, and if I really like the group, I get some of their CDs.. but I don't have much in the way of money, and when they cost $15-$23 , its kinda hard to buy CD's as much as I'd like to. I did recently buy 4 CDs.. and that racked in 65 bucks.. You can sure as hell believe me when I say I don't plan on doing that again. __________________ RoboBlaster: Welcome to the club! Not that I'm in the club. And there really isn'a a club in the first place. But if there was a club and if I was in it, I would definitely welcome you to it.

09-19-2003, 05:14 PM	#6 (permalink)
LutherMac Crazy Location: St. Louis, MO	I personally refuse to pay $15-$20 for CDs. Especially with the fact that of that, the artist gets mere pennies. Personally, since all of this has been going down, most of my music purchases have been from independant labels and MP3.com. While I don't beleive music should be free, I do think that it should be affordable for the average consumer. I just wish the RIAA would get their act together and do something meaningful, rather stealing money from artists to pay for stupid lawsuits. __________________ Always remember that you are unique... just like everyone else!

09-19-2003, 12:44 PM	#3 (permalink)
peacy Crazy Location: Reading, UK	I'm not sure if the musicians are making too much money... Maybe... But I'm sure that the record companies are making too much... They're the ones setting the price so the really good selling albums will pay for the loss 'caused by the non-profitable ones... (I believe this ratio is 10%:90% ) I'm not saying music should be free. But I'm not gonna pay for crap. And downloading music is the best test. Like it -> gonna buy it. (For sure.)