Nearly a year after the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling against online music file-sharing services, the CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America says unauthorized song swapping has been “contained.”
“The problem has not been eliminated,” says association CEO Mitch Bainwol. “But we believe digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business, and file-trading is flat.”
That’s an optimistic view from an industry that saw its numbers slide to near oblivion after the launch of the original Napster in 1999. CD sales fell as much as 30%, and the RIAA pressed Congress and the courts for relief against what it said was rampant piracy.
After the Supreme Court ruled that the services could be liable for piracy by their users, the RIAA sent cease-and-desist letters to several firms. Most — including BearShare, WinMX and Grokster — shut down. EDonkey and others said they would switch to a licensed, paid model.
EDonkey, which along with BitTorrent is one of the most-used file-sharing services, has yet to make the switch.
Even with Grokster and WinMX shut down, their software programs still exist. Eric Garland, CEO of Internet measurement firm BigChampagne, says that more people than ever are using file-sharing networks. “Nearly 10 million people are online, swapping media, at any given time,” he says. That May figure is up from 8.7 million people in 2005, he says.
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It’s interesting the RIAA/MPAA are always sucking their own dicks. Contained?? Sounds like a damn large container to me. I’m cool with whatever they think. And I’m still cool with knowing I have the option to pay or not. if i were to give any truth to what he says I think file sharing “has gone flat” in the music area primarily because people are growing tired of mainstream music. If it weren’t for the government having laws that worked in their favor they would have to actually come up with a viable business plan that would survive the market.
I was thinking about getting back at them by downloading some music but then I realized as far as what I hear on the TV and radio there’s nothing I want.
I wish it were true filesharing to no longer be mainstream. When I first started to do filesharing it was barely understood by anyone but people competent at using a computer now any idiot can do it. If it got back to what it was we would have less fakes more quality. But then again the extra users has added sources on which to download they havnt however contributed content.
It’s about time the RIAA is realzing things! They think it’s file sharing is flat? Good let them think that! They finally see the light that Legal Digital downloads are not hurting them? Of course the only way they can now see it hurting them is that they are not getting $15-$20.00 per song! And another note: As well all well know cetain P2P companies can move over to the “Legal Side” but I hope they know that they will not survive very long. They will want to make you pay plus use spyware popups and banner ads just to make more money.
Contained? Like “Jesus” said in the BIG LEBOWSKI “Laughable mang!”