The peer-to-peer Internet file swapping community could be facing another and heavier volume of attack soon. Using software scanning the public directories available to P2P network users, the Recording Industry Association of America – endorsed by some of the most familiar names in the music industry, from Sheryl Crow and Mary J. Blige to Peter Gabriel and the Dixie Chicks – plans to start an evidence-gathering operation to identify individual file swappers for lawsuits.
When the software they'll use finds the users offering to share copyright music files without formal authorization, the RIAA said, the software will download some of the infringing files including the date and time the files were accessed.
This tack might well come under fire in its own right from the P2P community, of course, but the trade association claims endorsement for the effort from some of music's top players. "If you create something and then someone takes it without your permission, that is stealing," said Blige, the platinum-selling singer, in a statement. "It may sound harsh, but it is true."
"Good music isn't easy to come by," said Crow in another statement. "Musicians spend their entire lives perfecting their craft and honing their skills. Unfortunately, everyone has to make a living. If musicians had to work 'day jobs' to support themselves and their families, they wouldn't have time or energy to be creative. Music fans cannot expect their favorite musicians to continue to produce quality albums if they are not willing to pay. People, including musicians, expect to be rewarded for a job well done. It's all about supply and demand. If there is not demand, there will eventually be no supply."
The RIAA said in announcing the new evidence-gathering effort, which they plan to begin June 26, that its efforts over several years to teach the public about the illegalities of unauthorized file swapping should have made things clear enough. They also noted a number of music companies have made "vast catalogues of music available to dozens of services" to create legitimate alternatives to the pirate P2P swapping communities.
In fact, the RIAA most recently tried hitting the P2P networks directly, sending millions of instant messages to Kazaa and Grokster P2P users through those networks themselves.
"The law is clear and the message to those who are distributing substantial quantities of music online should be equally clear – this activity is illegal, you are not anonymous when you do it, and engaging in it can have real consequences," RIAA president Cary Sherman said. "We'd much rather spend time making music than dealing with legal issues in courtrooms. But we cannot stand by while piracy takes a devastating toll on artists, musicians, songwriters, retailers and everyone in the music industry."
The trade association said their evidence-gathering efforts could prove the basis for "thousands" of lawsuits charging copyright infringement, and suggested the first suits could start appearing by mid-August. But Sherman all but said the P2Pers go on final notice as of June 26.
"Once we begin our evidence-gathering process, any individual computer user who continues to offer music illegally to millions of others will run the very real risk of facing legal action in the form of civil lawsuits that will cost violators thousands of dollars and potentially subject them to criminal prosecution," he said.
Gabriel, who has enjoyed a long and distinguished solo music career following his early years as a co-founder of Genesis, said the question of whether people who create material are entitled to royalties is a bigger question for society than for the musicians in some ways. "I would argue that you would get better range, better quality and better choice if you do pay the creator something," Gabriel said. "We live in the luxury of the in between world at the moment where some people pay for the records while others get it for free. It is the part of it that is the market stall, and at a certain point there will be less fruit on the stall if there's no money coming in."
The Dixie Chicks issued a statement in which they said every illegal music file download equals a songwriter not getting paid or another new artist not getting a chance. "Respect the artists you love by not stealing their music," the trio said. "You're in control. Support music, don't steal it."
It isn't just the contemporary hitmakers lining up against the P2Pers. Songwriting pioneer Lamont Dozier – as in Holland-Dozier-Holland, whose compositions and recording production helped make Motown Records the most successful black music company of the 1960s, said illegal file swapping "is killing the business as we know it today."
And those who believe the P2P networks do a huge favor for new or independent musicians who might not have get a hearing otherwise might be halted by Bruce Iglauer. The founder and chief of Alligator Records, considered the U.S.'s top contemporary blues label, Iglauer said the file swappers actually may hurt more than help the independent label and independent artist.
"The struggling indies already occupy a much smaller market share than the majors," said Iglauer. "The independents' loss of income from even a small number of sales lost to 'file sharing' can be the difference between whether much independent music is recorded or not. If this proliferation of the theft of the creations of our independent artists continues, less and less music will be recorded. The public must be educated about the real of results stealing music from its creators."
The RIAA recently lost what is regarded as a landmark case against Grokster, Kazaa, and Morpheus – three P2P systems that have gained in popularity since the demise of Napster. The services were deemed legitimate, even if copyright right infringement is taking place on those systems, because they have substantial non-infringing uses as well.
