Since file sharing blew up with Napster in ’99, industries who lose sales of copyrighted material have been in a battle with P2P networks, and their users. Suddenly, stealing an album or a video-game became easy, and guilt-free. Why would someone buy anything ever again?
There have been lawsuits about the digital theft of copyrighted material, but it is still everywhere. You hear of people getting sued for everything they have because of the music they downloaded, but these seem rare an far between. It’s easy to have the “it’ll never happen to ME” attitude.
Well, some media producers have been fighting file-sharing in other ways, besides litigation. The amount of copyrighted music illegally downloaded has actually been declining since 2012 (NPD Group). This is because of new services that have adjusted to the the changes in technology. The biggest example is Spotify. Spotify changed the way we consume and pay for music. It works because they’ve made a service that’s actually MORE convenient than stealing. You just hop on the app, and you can listen to anything you want, instantly. For free... well, kind-of free. Occasionally you are forced to listen to ads between songs. But you can get rid of them for a small monthly fee, that seems reasonable to a lot of people. And ta-da! Music can produce revenue again, and the listeners are happy too.
To combat piracy, industries need to step up their game to make services that are more appealing than breaking the law (with seemingly-low consequences).
Andres,
ReplyDeleteInteresting take on the topic. I like the overall flow and tone of your post. Including Piracy and Music into the post won you my vote! My recent iTunes bill has prompted me to look for other alternative sources like Rhapsody and Spotify. I believe that by switching to file-sharing methods like Spotify, people like me can access tons of 'Legal' music online!
The blog very well sounds like 'YOU'!!
Great job!