Pirates

The 2002 fall of Napster- tragic for music lovers all over the world. Not only did fans lose their source of free music but the whole world got to watch as the big money corporations joined together and came down with all their power on Shawn Fanning, dangling him by the ankles for millions of dollars. 
Am I the only one who sees the problem here???


In an article titled The State of Music Online: Ten Years After Napster, the author writes a fantastic metaphor for file sharing- "If the music business was the canary, then the MP3 was its carbon monoxide, choking an industry that had built its empire on the clean, regulated air of analog music products."


Similarly, A New York Times article from 2000 was also cited, in which the height of Napster's popularity was claimed to be a predictor of the record industry's decline; 

"In the none-too-distant future, techno-visionaries declare, 

musicians will not need record labels. 

Instead, they will market and sell recordings directly to fans over the Internet. 

Even the labels that manage to hang on to their artists 

will find their sales eviscerated by piracy. 

With free music available on the Web via 

Napster and other song-trading services, 

only fools will pay for songs."

This chart seems to support this prediction........ 

I really believe the growth of digital music files and p2p networking is responsible- I've mentioned this in the previous entries as well so I won't go into detail right here. 


In addition, this article included a survey report measuring the frequency of file sharing up until the spring of 2003. The effects of the lawsuit against Napster are screamingly evident as the percentages of users drop dramatically by the end of 2003. See for yourself...

This same article wrote:  "And by the time the Pew Internet Project fielded its initial survey on music file-sharing in July 2000, nearly one in four adult internet users said they had downloaded music files, and most of them (54%) had used the Napster network to do so."


What stands out to you here? 
I found it interesting that in 2000, the numbers were spread out fairly evenly among all the groups. There were small differences among the sexes and races, but when you look at the age distribution of music downloaders the majority of file sharing is done in the age group of 18-29. I find it extremely easy to believe this statistic- the younger generation is more internet-savvy, and they are more into the music scene than any other age group. These are the years when keeping up with new music is important and a part of their social scene. I'm making an assumption when I say that the older age groups don't expose themselves to new music as often and already have the music they want to listen to. 


A more recent study (2009) in the UK found "at least half don’t think the music industry does enough to persuade them that such activity is damaging. Some also believe that their illegal activity is mitigated by regularly spending more money on legal content and live gigs."
The majority also attributed their downloading activity to the increasing cost of music and their decreasing funds. Again the "why buy when you can get it free" attitude was prevalent among users. 


The initial study on pirating popularity was concluded in December of 2003, and I sincerely wish it hadn't been because I know that this decline was NOT permanent. Napster died in 2003, but you know what they say... when one window closes another one opens...  


and this window was The Pirate Bay.




The Pirate Bay is a swedish website founded in November of 2003 which allows music sharing via bit torrents. In addition to music, this site hosts torrents for movies, programs, games, music videos, television shows, applications, porn...  pretty much any downloadable material you could want.  No membership required, users seed their torrents with each other and the information is transferred this way. For the past six to seven years The Pirate Bay (TPB) has been functioning and gaining fans the same way Napster once did... except they continue to grow today.  On it's blog, TPB defines itself:
  

"TPB is not just a website. 

TPB is not just a file sharing network. 

TPB is not just a movement. 

TPB is also art. 

TPB is a performance. 

It's a long running art project. 

Very long."

The RIAA would strongly disagree. 

In 2009 the 4 businessmen behind TPB were taken to court by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in Stockholm, Sweden. [The IFPI represents the recording industry worldwide with their main headquarters in some of the biggest countries in the world such as Hong Kong, Brussels, Miami and Moscow... you can only imagine the intensity of this Plaintiff!] The four Pirate Bay-ers were charged for copyright infringement. After a nine day trial all four defendants were found guilty. The sentence was one year in prison and $3.5 million (US Dollars) in "fines and damages". (Who does this money go to again... the recording industries?)

Well apparently one of the judges was part of several pro-copyright organizations and thus proven to hold a bias when ruling. The charges were temporarily dismissed, but I wouldn't venture as far to say that TPB is in the clear. It faces CONSTANT controversy, especially among European countries such as Italy, Denmark, Norway and Ireland where access to the site has been "blocked". (I am curious about the effectiveness of this blockage...) 

PIMPIN' ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Lawsuits and legal issues spring up constantly, and when they do the fan base of TPB is very evident; the 2009 case stirred up worldwide outrage from TPB users and one could find it on any blogs or comments at the time. 

Perhaps TPB has so many dedicated fans because they are the reality- the recording industries are the past. They are the grandparents who still want to hang out with their grandkids and get mad when they don't fit in. They refuse to acknowledge the changing generations and growing technology, but this doesn't make their relationship disappear. They are linked together. 

Peter Sunde (very newly retired TPB spokesperson) interviewed with the BBC in March of 2008. He shared his insight about what TPB does, why it does it, and how the record industry is simply in denial of the internet-savvy world we live in- one where their power is questioned. 

“The generation that scares the music industry more is the next one, the one that’s coming up now because they’ve never known anything different. There’s always been peer to peer [for them], there’s always been very easy ways to get on whichever service you want and the music is there. So the question of how to get it…it’s not backroom dealing or someone setting up a table on the street corner, it is always there, so the music industry is struggling because they have to figure out how to convince that generation to think of anything other than 'this is the easiest and most free way to get my music.'"

...

“Previously we wanted to have information free but it was hard and the Internet has made it easy. This is an evolution that’s needed and I think in a hundred years we’re gonna look back at this period and say: 'We were so stupid to even try and stop it.'"

And for the record- I completely agree with him. If things seem out of control now, the next generation will only bring more chaos. They can blame and sue the source, but the truth is this: the source is not The Pirate Bay, the source is not Napster or Limewire or Kazaa or WinMX. The source is the millions and millions of young men and women who love music and have found each other all over the world via the internet. 

Final Thought: The voice of Peter Sunde leads a worldwide musical revolution:

“We’re fighting, The Pirate Bay is fighting for freedom because we don’t want to be information slaves, we don’t want to have someone else decide what we should and shouldn’t think.”