Music Ally

The RIAA has filed comments to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) urging it not to block anti-piracy efforts if it implements new ‘net neutrality’ rules. The rules would cover how ISPs are and aren’t allowed to manage their network traffic.

The RIAA’s submission claims that P2P file-sharing applications account for more than 20% of the “total bytes that traverse the Internet”, and 17% of the bandwidth used in peak hours. “Put bluntly, huge amounts of the Internet’s bandwidth are tied up in unlawful traffic. Piracy wastes scarce network resources and crowds out legitimate uses of the network.”

The RIAA says it’s not opposed to net neutrality per se, but is worried that it could prevent efforts to clamp down on illegal file-sharing. The question is what those efforts might involve – and more pertinently, whether it’s on the verge of reaching an agreement with any ISPs to put them into place.

In the fourth part of our series looking back at the Decade of Digital (read part one on 2000, part two on 2001 and part three on 2002 published earlier this week) we examine 2003: the year that US labels started legal actions against individuals and the year that the iTunes music store launched for the PC.

Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.

And continue reading after the jump to take a look back at the year 2003, as we reported it at the time.

(more…)

Music Ally has been studying the intersection between entertainment and technology since 2000, publishing reports throughout that time. But now that we’re fewer than two weeks from the start of a new decade, Music Ally has taken some time to reflect on the past ten years – a decade that will forever be remembered as the era when digital entertainment went mainstream.

Since 2003, all subscribers to the full Music Ally service have been able to search our archives of news, insight and analysis. Today, as part of a series in which we excerpt the most fascinating digital music events of the years 2000-2008. we unearth some of our reports from the year 2000.  

Sign up for a free two-week trial to Music Ally and get access to all our past reports and bulletins plus a suite of research tools including market data, a deal tracker and an analyst forecast tracker. In the most recent PDF Report you can find a rundown of 2009’s big events plus an extensive timeline detailing the key digital music happenings of the past ten years.

And continue reading after the jump to take a look back at the year 2000, as we reported it at the time.

(more…)

Well, you’d hardly expect the boss of the world’s most powerful music industry body to write a column titled ‘five reasons the music biz is doomed’, would you? Maybe after a few beers and a cry…

But yes, RIAA chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol has penned a column for Hollywood site The Wrap to explain why things are looking up for recorded music. Some points are sensible enough – the recognition that recorded music revenues are about far more than CD sales, and indeed about far more than sales.

But this point clangs like a man-sized anvil: “So far in 2009, growth in digital album sales is again outpacing digital singles (17.5 percent vs. 11.7 percent). Digital music is still a maturing marketplace, and fans are becoming increasingly comfortable buying not just the latest single online, but the entire album. Throw in the recent iTunes LP initiative from Apple and the major record companies and the album’s unparalleled significance is taken to the next level.”

(more…)

Minnesota resident Jammie Thomas-Rasset has been found guilty (again) of wilfully infringing 24 copyrighted songs, in her file-sharing retrial.

And startlingly, the jury upped the damages awarded to the labels from $9,250 per song in the original verdict to a whopping $80,000 per song this time – leaving Thomas-Rasset with a bill for $1.92 million instead of the original $222,000.

Mindful of the negative PR implications, the RIAA has hinted that it won’t seek the full amount. “Since day one, we have been willing to settle this case, and we remain willing to do so,” says spokesperson Cara Duckworth.

This may not be the end of the case, though – Thomas-Rasset’s lawyers are apparently mulling a constitutional challenge to the verdict due to the sheer scale of the damages awarded.

The UK government may be considering legislation to force ISPs to implement graduated response schemes to punish persistent illegal file-sharers, but it seems in the US, the RIAA is struggling to negotiate voluntary deals along those lines with ISPs there.

At least, that’s the gist of a CNET report, which points out that six months ago the RIAA announced plans to work with ISPs on graduated response schemes, with warnings leading up to cutting the internet access of file-sharers. At the time, it said it would announce partners within six weeks, but six months later none have been announced.

CNET quotes one anonymous ISP executive as saying the RIAA has been too heavy-handed in its efforts to get the ISPs to sign up, while the RIAA ripostes that its efforts have led to nearly half a million warning letters being sent out to infringers. It seems the US and UK could be set to provide contrasting case studies of the merits (or otherwise) of government intervention.

Billboard has an interesting Q&A with former RIAA boss Hilary Rosen, tying in with the tenth anniversary of Napster. She’’s got some sharp words for the industry’’s reaction in recent years.

“There’s been this time period between 2002 and 2006, maybe 2007, when there just weren”t enough deals done,” she says. “There were so many innovative ways to deliver music and not a lot of licensing support from the music business. That’s not just the record companies, the music publishers have been really brought kicking to the table.”

And there’s more: “The one lesson the industry did not learn after Napster was speed. When you’re talking about technology, you have to move quickly on opportunities.” It could be argued that many elements within the music industry still haven’t taken this lesson on board.

This week has seen a revival in the spat between TechCrunch and Last.fm, over the former’s allegations that the latter shared user data with the RIAA following the leak of U2’s recent album. Now Last.fm’s parent company CBS has chimed in, once more slapping down the accusations.

“Both CBS and the RIAA have already stated quite clearly, for the record, that absolutely no individual user or listener information was supplied to the RIAA by Last.fm or any division of CBS Corporation in the past, nor do we plan to do so in the future,” says its statement.

“The story posted by the website was based on an unnamed tipster. No inquiry was made to CBS or Last.fm about the veracity of the anonymous source. Those who consult such blogs should be aware of the standard by which such postings are sourced and published.”

With TechCrunch having published a leaked email that it claims proves CBS did share data with the RIAA, this one could run and run.

A retrial may be on the cards in the infamous Jammie Thomas filesharing case as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) failed to reach a settlement with Thomas’’s lawyer Brian Toder. (more…)

The RIAA’s lawsuit against New Yorker Patricia Santangelo has become something of a cause celebre over the last four years. She was sued for file-sharing, but refused to settle on account of the fact that she was an “Internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from kazoo” (in the words of a federal judge).

The RIAA eventually dropped the suit and filed a separate one against two of her children, who it said were the infringers in the Santangelo household, downloading more than 1,000 tracks illegally. Now the two sides have come to a settlement where the family will pay $7,000.

When asked how much it had cost to reach this point, RIAA spokesperson Cara Duckworth said: “We don’t break out costs per case, and it’s not a question of it being `worth it’ or a `victory’.”