How has piracy affected the music industry/royalties/record sales etcCopyright etc Piracy; meaning “the unauthorized use or reproduction ofanother’s work” (definition), has been an ever-growing issue in the musicindustry with it ranging from copying CD’s to MP3 audio files.
There have beenmany attempts to try and stop piracy of artist’s work but the continuous streamof sites that appear is non-stop; with website such as Grooveshark, BitTorrentand Pirate Bay playing a big part in this. The beginning of recorded music started in 1878 when the phonographwas invented by Thomas Edison, closely followed by the invention of theGramophone by Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter in the mid 1880’s. Both machineswere primarily for recording sound onto a delicate cylinder, with them beingaimed towards office supplier marketplaces; these aims failed due to separatemachines being required for making each individual copy. This led to thefoundation of Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901 who used disks instead ofcylinders. A few years later in 1909 the Copyright Act specified thatcompulsory licensing provision are of immense importance for the musicindustry, with ASCAP forming in 1914 to enforce this law. From the 1940’s sawthe start of illegalcopying of phonograph records with the act of ‘bootlegging’; this term definedthe unauthorised distribution of existing songs, as well as the illegaldistribution of otherwise newly made or unobtainable tapes taken from a recordedconcert/broadcast, or from unreleased studio sessions etc. Bootleg wasdifferent to that of copying, as bootlegging involved the distribution not thecopying of existing material. A major bootlegger in the early 1950’s wasDante Bollentino (Jolly Roger Label) who released historic recordings thatmajor record companies declined to put out, that meant Dante was providing customerswith songs that would have been unavailable if it wasn’t for him.
At this time,copyright only applied to music that had been publish, so for a song to beprotected it had to be published by being written or printed; this meant thatsheet music could easily be copied but recordings could not. The reason behindthis was the main requirements of the Copyright Act did not apply tounauthorised copying and distribution of recorded pop songs, resulting inrecordings being protected in a secondary way of licensing provisions. Even thoughbootlegging was very present in this decade, it was only a minor annoyance forthe industry with the recording industry selling 350 million disks in 1946 and thesesales increasing throughout the 50’s with it hitting over 100% more from1954-1959. The copying ofphonograph recordings resulted in each generation losing audio fidelity.Tapes (Compact Audio Cassette) were the next recording formatto be released in 1962 by Philips, they could come either as a blank cassetteready to be recorded onto or pre-recorded. The late 60’s saw tape piracy overshadowingthat of unauthorised distribution of phonograph recording, this resulted in anew genre of album bootlegging.
In 1970, FBI seized 20,000 counterfeit records,100,000 labels and 15,000 covers, with them also seizing machinery used toshrink wrap copies of the ‘Let It Be’ album by The Beatles and the ‘McCartney’ albumby Paul McCartney. This major tape bootlegging resulted in a Copyright Actchange in 1972 where songs no longer had to be published in order to be protected,they merely had to be ‘fixed’, i.e. onto a disk or a tape, to be protected.
As technologywas changing the face of the music industry, this change was closely followedby another change; in 1976, infringement in the industry needed to be clearlydefined, this was to bemade by the extensions of Copyright life being made to the life of theauthor plus 50 years. Tape copying was so big because it was simpler and cheaper than copying phonographrecordings; it was easy for bootleggers to set up a plant that was devoted tounauthorised manufacture. this mass production punched a huge hole into therecording industry’s control of the distribution system. Tape package was alsoa leading factor as they were less detailed than disks, meaning that making counterfeitcopies was easier; the smaller detail in the packaging resulted in authoritiesfinding it harder to distinguish the real recording to the copy which meant itwasn’t difficult for bootleggers to ship their goods into well-known systems. Asyou could get blank tapes, it aided tape makers in compiling or re-orderingsongs that had already been recorded into any program that was within the available duration, rangingfrom 30 minutes to several hours; this allowed not only just strict copying,but it could make tapes look like greatest hits or party tracks. But,tape copying was all good, unauthorised tapes were copied from existing recordsresulting in each stage of duplication degrading the sound and added a higherlevel of hiss on the tapes, not only this but they were carelessly made.
HOME TAPING????RELEVANCE????????? In NewYork, 1980, the police raided two sites, with one leading to a seizure of 3,$40,000, automated record presses (with each one, in 8 hours, producing 6,000LP’s), thousands of polishes and metal parts, shrink tunnels for wrapping,finished LP’s totalling over 10,000, and hundreds of labelsThe Compact Disk, co-developed by Philips and Sony wasreleased to the public in 1982 to store and play sound recordings, with CD’saccounting for 87% of the volume of units sold in 2000, increasing up to 91%in2001. Soon as the Cd was released it saw the beginning of bootlegging in EastAsia which was soon followed in 1990 by the recordable compact disc beingentered into the market; this disc allowed anyone to copy recordings onto it. Sevenyears later in 1997, Dutch customs halted an attempt to import 100,000 pirateCd’s from Bulgaria, which resulted in a Copyright Act change in 1998 increasing Copyrightlife from the life of the author plus 50 years, to the life of the author plus70 years. Copying CD’s was such an easy thing to do that you could do it athome which made it extremely easy for recordings to be duplicated. CD’s didn’thave the same issues as tapes that the sound degardes with each generation ofcopying, as it was a digital file it could be copied without degradation ofsound quality.MP3 files were the most radically transformed example ofunauthorised songs as they were no longer physical, but virtual. The initialrelease of the MP3 in 1993 made it easier to copying recordings, with you onlyneeding to select the desired recording, copy its digital form and then post iton the internet. The release also saw the beginning of Napster in 1998, withthe creator Shawn Fanning creating a computer interface that brought togetherMP3 format with existing software for peer-to-peer networking.
Fanning’ssoftware grew from a few hundred users to over a million in less than a year,with Napster being a hub for examining, logging and swapping digital song filesthat were stored on any person’s computer. A year later, in 1998, RIAA filed a law suit of copyright infringementagainst Napster with Metallica closely following a year later; that year, in2000, Napster closed 313,377 accounts with them having over 58 million usersregistered and more than 450 million songs available to be downloaded in thesummer of 2000.Napster finally deceased in July 2001, with it not entirely shuttingdown but being forced to close due to bankruptcy of complex court running’s.
Thiswas a victory for song owners, meaning that their songs would not be illegallydownloaded anymore with this bankruptcy forcing Napster to block access to thousandsof songs that the RIAA had gathered a list of. With the termination of Napster,rival networks attempted to take its place; these sites included BearShare,LimeWire, KaZaA and Morpheus. These sites didn’t exist until Febuary 2001, 3years after the release of Napster, with them not encountering a lot of trafficuntil the July when Napster ‘died’ and they soared into prominence. Fast trackingwas used by KaZaA and Morpheus which made KaZaA the most widely used of thesenew services, with BearShare and LimeWire using the Gnutella network. This sameyear the iPod was launched by Steve Jobs with no one wanting it because theycould get the same songs for free; two years later introducing a pay-per-song networkcalled iTunes which had copyright protections built into the device. iTunessales in 2006 tallied over a billion downloads resulting in EMI, a year laterin 2007, allowing iTunes to sell its catalogue without copyright limitationsthat previous major labels insisted on; this led to the general policy ofunrestricted copying of downloaded songs in 2009.
RIAA started a campaign in2003 that intimidated the general public by filing law suits againstindividuals that made large numbers of MP3 files available for the public todownload. The unauthorised distribution of recordings has caused great anguishto song owners, with illegal downloading even damaging the recordingcorporations; this is why laws have been put into place to protect recording bypenalties being raised. Although Napster provided immediate access to manygenres of songs that may not have been found otherwise without a lot ofdigging, the files could be altered or uncomplete, somewhere even unadorable. Onthe other hand, iTunes provided high quality recording that were extremelyreliable resulting in many people wanting to pay for this service. Three major networks of song sharing in the 21stcentury are the mobile phone, You Tube and Spotify; these platforms SPOTIFY 2008 – STREAMING SERVICEYOUTUBE 2005 – VIDEO SHARING 2008 nokia instituted “comes with music” where purchase ofphone enabled buyer to have unlimited downloads from catalogue of 5 mill songsMySpace – Universal, warner and sony BMG music entertainment –agreed to create music website where they would sell digital versions of songsin their catalogue – EMI declined – tried to convert social network audiencesinto paying customers Fredd Goodman Rolling Stone magazine “why pay eighteendollars for a CD that has three good songs on it when you can get those songsfree through file swapping?” (FIND QUOTE) Infrared and Bluetooth on phonesCopying CD’sConstant threat of leaks – have to publish songs immediatelyBitTorrent rates continue to increaseHurts emerging artists – Hollywood studios have financialbacking to track illegal downloads and streams, they estimate losses in thehundreds of millions of dollarsAlbums can cost thousands to produce – Kimberly James(President of incdie label CBM Recrods) says estimate of 10% of royalties lostto piracy FORBES LINK (i.
e. equivelant of Katy Perry losing at least 13.5 milldollars of 125ill dollars she made 2015 ReferencesDictionary.
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