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British Music Industry Crack Down |
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Wednesday, 24 March 2004 |
 The British Music Industry has today announced the launch of a campaign to curb music piracy that threatens legal action against people illegally uploading music onto the Internet. Guilty parties will be warned online to disable their file sharing software when they are obtaining music illegally – or face court.
The instant message will appear on screen that will warn file-sharers that offering music to others on their computer is illegal without permission of the copyright owner and that if they continue, they run the risk of facing legal penalties. However, the BPI insist that this initiative aims to target serial downloaders as opposed to occasional users.
The crackdown on file-sharing, follows research undertaken on behalf of the BPI and the British Videogram Association, by Taylor Nelson Sofres that revealed a direct link between downloading music and a fall in music sales, particularly singles.
The figures indicate that around 17.8% of the UK public, some 8 million, are downloading music and that 92% of downloaders use illegal file sharing networks – this equates to a total 7.4 million people in the UK.
The figures speak for themselves, with downloaders having spent 59% less on singles and 31% less on albums in 2003 when compared to 2002 expenditure figures. This is an overall music spending decrease of 33%.
'There is no clearer evidence of the damage that illegal downloading is doing to British music and the British music industry,' says BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson.
Representatives from major labels, independent record companies, Aim, the Musicians Union, digital distribution operations and the radio video business are backing the new BPI initaive.
Nick Phillips, Chairman of Warner Music UK commented:
'In the battle to educate consumers about the unethical nature of music downloading, we must, as an industry, make it clear that unauthorized copying of music is illegal, and hurtful to artists and every person who makes a living working in the music business.'
This latest move from the BPI suggests that the UK is moving closer to crackdown already being implemented in the US by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) where hundreds of music fans sharing their songs over the Internet are being sued.
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I wish to take extreme umbrage over the Nazi-like antics of the BPI and their American brothers in crime, the RIAA.
They claim to support the artists, but because of there insistence that downloading and uploading recorded music is a crime, artists, such as myself,
There is also a question of copyright infringement by record companys themselves, which do not appear to come under the same jurisdiction when it comes to copyright theft.
My example is this: In 1980 my band paid a recording company to record 2 songs which were subsequently pressed and then sold by ourselves at various gigs. Last year I discovered that a independent record company, here in the UK, had managed to get hold of one of our singles and had released one of the songs from it onto a compilation album. I cannot speak for the rest of my band as we are no longer in touch (we were a forces band), but it appears that no monies have been seen from the record company concerned, certainly not in my case.
I am also concerned with regards me allowing a free download of our single, and live recording extracts via peer to peer, and the posibility of my receiving a threatening letter form ISP following contact to them my the BPI.
Could someone please put this matter into some perspective, at it appears to me that the British Legal system is noe becoming a laughing stock and that the innocent can become criminals at the say so of the real criminals.
Regards,
Pete
P>S if you want the details please feel free to contact me.