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Music piracy x privacy issues: a paradigm shift over the years
In an article published on Mashable.com last year, music piracy or peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing in the U.S. has dropped from 16 percent (28 million users) in 2007, to 9 percent (16 million users) in the last quarter of 2010. That said, digital music theft or illegally downloading songs or entire albums for free has become a serious crime, to the tune of $12.5 billion dollars in losses to the U.S. economy as well as more than 70,000 lost jobs and $2 billion in lost wages to American workers, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). “From 2004 through 2009 alone, approximately 30 billion songs were illegally downloaded on file-sharing networks;” while 37 percent of it acquired in the U.S. in 2009 was actually paid for. More on the “Scope of the Problem” at RIAA.
Over the years, individuals have been sued for illegally downloading music–while the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has challenged RIAA on their “right to know certain information.” As a civil liberty issue, ACLU works to protect the privacy of internet users. ACLU staff attorney Aden Fine says, ”We’re not saying the record industry shouldn’t go after file-sharers, only that they must do so in a way that’s fair.”
Indie label Tokyo Dawn Records
Fabien Schivre, co-founder of Tokyo Dawn Records– an indie label based out of Frankfurt, Germany, said in an email this week that music-sharing sites do help in getting the word out about their artists–which include ATL-rapper Stan Smith, DJ-producer Opolopo and singer Amalia, ”But there are clear limits regarding the true “profit” in the long run. There is practically no way around it for newcomers, but not for most established artists.”
Additionally he states, “It hurts…file-sharing is a real pain, and we fight it wherever we can. However, the tone shifted in the last 2-3 years, most people familiarized themselves with e-payments in general and started buying music again (downloads mostly). [So] we are very positive regarding these developments.”
Tokyo Dawn releases music in the genres of broken beat, soul, funk, electro and hip-hop. They’ve worked with artists as diverse as Talib Kweli, Dam-Funk, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Blaktroniks, Atjazz, and Coco (of Danish duo Quadron).
