A body representing 175 artists worldwide has attacked the Recording Industry Association of America’s latest attempt to shut down peer-to-peer music sharing networks.
Dust Traxx manages 27 house and techno labels and claims to have been the largest producer, manufacturer and distributor of house music in the world during 2002. It’s promotions director Chuck Paugh says the RIAA ‘is deceptive in its claim to represent the recording industry’ and in fact only represents a handful of large record companies.
The RIAA recently announced plans to take legal action against individuals who make music files available for download. But Paugh says it does not have the right to take legal action against people trading music when copyright in the songs being swapped is not owned by its members.
‘Take a look at the songs they are claiming in their suites are being traded illegally,’ says Paugh. ‘Some of these songs are not owned or licensed by RIAA members making the RIAA claim to copyright infringement invalid.’
Paugh claims that he has spoken to more than 20 other companies similar to his and all are agreed that the RIAA’s campaign will backfire: ‘the industry as a whole is against these lawsuits’ he says.
Dusk Traxx, adds Paugh, ‘are not opposed to peer-to-peer trading of music. We feel that the dinosaurs in the industry need to catch up with technology
and consumer demands instead of trying to stomp on consumers….’
Paugh believes that the higher quality of CDs, and vinyl, is significant, as are levels of disposable income.
‘Despite the claims to quality of a peer-to-peer shared song, it is not as high quality as a piece of vinyl or commercially manufactured CD, he argues. ‘We believe that those sharing songs are mainly young teenagers who once they have consumable money to spend will go out and purchase music as adults.’
His claims appear to be backed by a recent report from Music Research and Programming – Music downloads drive sales, says report – which concluded that the unauthorised downloading of music actually benefits the industry by driving sales.
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