Entries Tagged 'Music Industry' ↓

is the subject of a good overview article in The Economist: Illegal file-sharers under attack. The article opens with a very sarcastic lede: “The music business should have stuck by Thomas Edison’s technology if it wanted to avoid the threat of piracy. His wax cylinders could record a performance but could not be reproduced; that became possible only with the invention of the flat-disc record some years later.”

that economics professors Koleman Strumpf and Felix Oberholzer have published a preliminary version of what I think is an important paper: The effect of file sharing on record sales - an empirical analysis [360K PDF]. The authors have come under withering criticism since putting the draft online, but the paper is clearly much better than anything else that has been published on the subject. If you’re curious, the New Observer in Raleigh NC has published a profile of Strumpf. Doesn’t look like an anarchist to me!

began hearing a case about music downloads on the internet today. The question is whether ISPs should be responsible for the royalties to copyright holders of material downloaded on the net. Something worth following, as any ISP would be liable to any Canadian copyright holder. Or so people have been saying today.

At Boing Boing! today yesterday, Cory posted a link to Techfocus magazine’s act of blocking RIAA and MPAA domains from accessing the site. A symbolic move, perhaps, but interesting nonetheless.

during my mini-hiatus over my wedding weekend (and subsequently) was the Apple-Universal Music story. It took me by surprise, but I agree with this analysis from Eric Hellweg of CNN/Money: it is a very tantalizing idea.

It’s clear that the record industry is too antidiluvian to figure this out on their own - even Sony, who would be a natural for a similar strategy, can’t seem to figure this out. But this whole thing is like the classic prisoner’s dilemma, but one in which all of us could benefit from the defection of just one player. In a way the music business is correct as it stands now - as long as none of them defect, they are achieving their optimal outcome as a group. But when one of them does decide to go, that’s it - the only optimal course will be to join the flow.

so writes John and Ben Snyder in a paper of the same name submitted to NARAS the other day. John Snyder is the president of a record label and a board member of NARAS, the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences. They’re the ones who bring you the Grammy awards among other things.