Courts fight against music piracy

By Lauren Duffy

In the past ten years, the music industry has undergone a radical shift due to increased internet usage and easy access to online file sharing. The days of peer-to-peer file sharing may be coming to a close, however, as courts are cracking down on programs that allow copyright infringement and music piracy.

On Oct. 27, a New York judge ordered file-sharing site Limewire to shut down, arguing that the site's software is used "overwhelmingly for infringement," and that the company "marketed itself to Napster users, who were known copyright infringers." The file-sharing site shut down last Wednesday, with the front page of the site reading that "Limewire is under a court-ordered injunction to stop distributing and supporting its file sharing software." The closing of LimeWire comes at the end of a four-year court battle with the Record Industry Association of America and major music companies including Sony and Warner Brothers.

In a statement on their corporate page, the company said the injunction only applies to LimeWire software, and that they are currently working on a "completely new music service that puts you back at the center of your digital music experience," which will adhere to copyright laws. Napster, the infamous peer-to-peer file-sharing site of the late 1990's, saw a similar rebirth when it was bought by Roxio and rebranded as a legal, paid music service.

Over the last ten years, total revenue from album sales has declined over fifty percent, and it is clear that the "traditional" business model for the music industry is facing a swift death. The music industry has had to adapt to widespread piracy by offering legal options like iTunes, which has sold more than 10 billion songs since its debut.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, the official system of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada, overall digital music sales have increased five percent this year, and sales from digital downloads have steadily taken up a larger portion of total revenue from music sales in the past few years. Non-traditional music outlets like iTunes, Amazon.com, and Starbucks beat out mass merchants to become the biggest sector of music sales, with 55.5 million units sold in the first half of 2010.

An informal survey of Santa Clara students in Benson Center reflected the current music industry landscape of dwindling CD sales and an increased focus on legal options for music consumerism. Audio-video streaming sites like YouTube, music blogs and internet radio like Pandora tend to be the first places Santa Clara students go to find new music.

Freshman Moises Venegas described the "pandora's box of technology" as a double-edged sword of being able to easily find anything, good or bad, online. Venegas said that he used to use peer-to-peer file sharing, but stopped after hearing the consequences on the Santa Clara campus associated with music piracy.

He now primarily uses Internet radio.

Sophomore Ricky Mempin is currently facing the penalties associated with illegal file-sharing after being caught for having LimeWire installed on his on-campus computer last year, and said that he wasn't using LimeWire but the software automatically shared his music files with another LimeWire user.

As a result, Mempin does not currently have internet access and is in the process of undergoing disciplinary action by Santa Clara.

Sophomore Brian Farrell gets most of his music online from music blogs like Hype Machine, but said that he definitely feels bad for artists who have dealt with piracy and albums "leaking" before their release date. "[Musicians] can't keep making music if they can't get paid," said Farrell.

The "open" nature of the internet has made regulation of file sharing a complex issue. "I don't know if there's a solution [to regulate file sharing] without invading people's privacy rights," said sophomore Brianna Martin.

Sophomore Jenny Kromm, who uses internet radio, discussed the problematic nature of regulating the internet; "If people are going to get the music, they're going to find a way to do it," she said.

Contact Lauren at leduffy@scu.edu or at (408) 551- 1918.