If I were to become a politician in the future, I would not want to be frowned upon because of some activities I engaged as a young adult. Now, I am not referring to drugs or under age drinking. I am speaking about the engagement of illegal music file sharing. I participated in the activity before I could maturely weigh the morality of the issue (if there was one). That being said, I was entertaining ideas (after reading Michael Arrington's post on a Music Tax) about of what I believe the music industry should do about illegal music file sharing.
The Music Industry and the RIAA should embrace file sharing and current technology. The days of music sales via cds or downloads is over. Not really, but the music industry should accept the fact that sales of cds should not be their first concern. The issue at hand with the music industry not supporting illegal file sharing is that revenue is lost and copyright infringement is incurred. Now, I think they care more about the financial loss then the copyright violation, but I may be wrong. The Music industry must step back and reassess their priorities and restructure the industry to serve the goals that are currently not being met due to technology.
Why is illegal file sharing occurring? Because it is FREE! If presented with paying for a service or receiving it for free, people opt for the latter. Instead of wasting their time running around the country and world trying to lobby for laws that enforce punishment for file sharers, the music industry should create the infrastructure that the end user has been asking for the past 10 years. People want to download music for free.
What should the music industry do then? I believe that the most practical solution to illegal file sharing is to make it legal. Say what? Yes, you read correctly. The Music Industry must replace the role that pirates fulfill by becoming them. What does that mean? The Music Industry should join forces to create and maintain a file sharing client that allows users to download music from a database for free. The end user would benefit by downloading free music from a safe and reliable source. They would also not have to go to other sources to get the music they want. The Music Industry would provide the service for free but ads would pay for the downloads. They would monopolize the distribution channel and the sky is the limit. Revenue could be made through other means and this is the change in mentality that the Music Industry must embrace if it wishes to win the war against piracy.
