In something of a blow to the recording industries efforts to line their pockets more from the talent of artists, the US supreme court has thrown out an appeal by the RIAA to force Verizon Internet Services to hand over the details of users engaged in file sharing.
The recording industry has been waging a campaign to force the Internet digital music industry to abide by the same rules and regulations as their real world counterparts, something that anyone with an IQ over their shoe size would realise will never work. They need to grow with the times. The days of their rampant fleecing of everyone involved in their industry is over. Most of their tasks (like distribution and packaging) are being replaced by the Internet, which requires no physical distribution as such and no packaging. So their use in the modern industry will not be what it once was and they need to find new ways to “cash in”.
The RIAA/Verizon verdict has been covered far and wide, so here are a couple of places you can read more. Wired.com, TheInquirer, TheRegister and InternetNews .
All that remains is for the Grokster appeal to be denied as well, and the music industry may actually have to do some work and evolve like the rest of us. We can hope anyway. What they appear to be worried about, is that without packaging and distribution, all they really do is promotion and paying for studio time, which makes them worth significantly less then they are used to charging. (By packaging, I mean all aspects of the production of a physical product.)
When Internet music sales really take off, we might actually see many new Internet only recording companies come into being, because most of the barriers that limit the industry to the big four will be gone.
Regards
Franki
