Performers sue MP3.com for Ł27m More internet news John CassyThursday May 10, 2001The Guardian Wrinkly rockers Tom Waits, Randy Newman and members of heavy metal band Heart have launched a £27m lawsuit against music website MP3.com.
They claim that it is illegally giving listeners access to their songs through the My.MP3.com service and infringing on their copyright.
The suit has been filed despite previous agreements between the website and the industry aimed at stamping out the process.
The musicians claim that classic songs such as Downtown Train by Mr Waits, Barracuda by Heart and I Love LA by Mr Newman were illegally copied from compact discs on to the internet via MP3.com users' home computers.
They believe about 270 songs are illegally available through the service and are demanding around £100,000 per song.
"Unless the major artists band together to do this, everyone else is taken advantage of as well," Henry Gradstein, lawyer for the plaintiffs said when filing the suit in Los Angeles.
Last November, MP3.com agreed to pay £37m to Universal Music Group, ending the company's disputes with leading music makers. That followed a ruling in a New York federal court that MP3.com had intentionally violated the copyrights of the music firms.
MP3.com agreed to pay the National Music Publishers' Association about £20m to make more than 1m musical compositions available on the site.
Shares in MP3.com have, over the last year, fallen from $22 to trade at less than $3 amid concern about litigation and wider issues surround the valuation of internet companies. The company is named after MP3, the a data-compression format that allows music to be downloaded from the internet.
i-Pods will kill CD sales, and other myths Tony WadsworthFriday December 10, 2004The Guardian Everyone has a view of today's music industry, but for those of us lucky enough to work in it, some of those views can seem far from reality. In response to research on digital music carried out by Guardian Unlimited, here are my Top 10 myths and misunderstandings.
1.The i-Pod explosion will kill CD sales.
i-Pods and other MP3 devices have given lapsed music fans renewed interest in music and they need "content". Many consumers are buying new CDs to load via their PC, and recent British figures show album sales are at an all-time high. What we care about is bringing as much quality music to as many people as possible, in as many ways as they want to receive it, online or on a physical format.
2. Unauthorised use of P2P (file-sharing services, like Grokster or Kazaa) promotes sales and so is a good thing.
Music companies invest huge amounts in helping artists record their music. It's the right of the people involved in that process to decide how that music is made available and whether they want payment for their work. If unauthorised P2P becomes the only consumer experience, musicians and producers will be starved of investment.
3. Record companies are anti-downloading.
We believe that the net is a fantastic way to listen to new music and get into styles of music you otherwise might not hear. Through artist and official retail websites we're offering brand new content through streams and special offers. We've been building fan bases this way for more than 10 years and have used audience votes to select singles or tell the Rolling Stones what to play as an encore during their live shows.
4. Record companies are anti file-sharing technologies.
We will work with any company that has a sound business model, including legitimate P2P services such as Snocap, with whom we are in discussion.
5. Record companies can't agree on which file format music should be delivered.
We aren't technology companies and aren't involved in originating those formats, but we would much prefer to see inter-operability across file formats and are lobbying to achieve this.
6. Digital delivery of music means artists can go direct to consumers and won't need record companies.
Music companies fulfil a key role in the recording and marketing of their artists. Their investment and expertise is valued by new artists trying to get established.
7. Record companies were slow to adapt to new technology and so the pirates got there first.
It's a lot quicker to rip something off and offer it free than it is to build a legal framework around the same system so that artists, writers and producers can be paid for their work and develop long-term careers. There are scores of legitimate sites in place now.
8. Consumers have got used to getting music free so won't buy digitally.
From a standing start a year ago, there are now 1m legal downloads a month in Britain alone, a download chart, countless online retailers offering different ways of getting music such as streaming or subscription and a large and growing legal market for receiving music on mobile phones.
9. With no manufacturing costs, record companies should be able to drop prices.
The risks and initial investment in launching an artist, which includes recording albums; paying artists, producers and engineers; producing videos and developing visuals, remain the same. Manufacturing costs are now put into huge investment in IT and digitisation.
10. The record industry is crazy to "sue" its customers.
We need to establish that getting music free without the permission of its creators is wrong, pure and simple.
Tony Wadsworth, chairman & CEO of EMI Music UK & Ireland, is a panellist at the Guardian Unlimited Digital Music Forum, in association with Word Magazine, being hosted at Abbey Road studios in London today. Research was carried out by Harris Research for Guardian Unlimited, as part of an ongoing project within GU to gain greater understanding of the UK internet audience.
Record industry sues fans for illegally downloading music from internet Online piracy blamed for slump in singles market but some bands back right to find songs free of charge Patrick BarkhamFriday October 8, 2004The Guardian A year ago, Brianna LaHara felt the full weight of the American music business when the terrified 12-year-old was accused of illegally swapping songs online and forced to pay $2,000 (£1,175) compensation. Now 28 music fans will become the first people in Britain to be sued by the record industry for illegally downloading songs from the internet.
The 28 unnamed individuals have been identified as prolific "file-sharers", offering up to 9,000 songs illegally over the internet, and traced through their computer's internet address. They will soon receive letters from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) demanding compensation of several thousand pounds, and will face civil action if they fail to settle out of court.
The legal moves mark the start of an uncompromising campaign by British record companies to banish online music piracy, which they blame for the 50% slump in the singles market since the original - illegal - incarnation of Napster was launched in 1999. According to research for the BPI, illegal downloaders spend on average 30% less than their music-buying peers. Record companies argue that it is no coincidence that since the crackdown in the US began, industry revenue there has risen again by 3.9%.
But targeting illegal downloaders by taking them to court has proved controversial. Critics have pointed out that record companies suing their (often teenage) customers is a public relations disaster. Some industry figures say swapping songs online is a useful way to promote music and does not damage sales, while bands, including Blur and Franz Ferdinand, have spoken out in favour of using the internet to freely find music.
Jay Berman, chairman of the IFPI, the international federation of record companies, admitted that targeting illegal file-sharing networks, including WinMX, KaZaA, Imesh, Grokster and Bearshare, was like playing Whack-A-Mole, with alternative services popping up just as quickly as illegal sites are shut down.
Mr Berman said that by targeting serious "uploaders" who offer thousands of tracks for others to share over the internet, the music industry would avoid the kind of backlash that would follow were they to prosecute teenagers innocently downloading music in their bedrooms.
"We don't screen for political correctness," said Mr Berman. "We go on the basis of an IP [internet protocol] address. We don't know who these people are. It is done on the basis of the level of activity not on the age of the person. A 12-year-old shoplifter would suffer certain consequences."
Record companies hope the tide is turning against illegal "peer-to-peer" file-sharing, where users obtain a computer programme through networks like KaZaA which enable them to search others' computers for video and music files. Members then download these files for free while uploading other files for their peers to freely access.
There has been an explosion in legal downloading services from 20 a year ago to more than 100 today. Sites such as the all-conquering iTunes, OD2 and the now-legal Napster allow consumers to download more than 1m different tracks by paying a fee of around 75p per song, allowing a royalty to be paid to both artist and record and music publishing companies. More than 2m tracks have now been downloaded legally in the UK. An official download chart was launched last month.
While seven out of 10 consumers in the UK are aware that file-sharing is illegal, 700m unauthorised music files continued to be shared around the globe at any one time. Since March, the BPI has dispatched more than 350,000 instant messages to uploaders' computers warning them they are acting illegally.
"We have resisted legal action as long as we could," said Peter Jamieson, chairman of the BPI. "We have done everything we can to raise awareness of this problem. We would be derelict in our duty to protect and promote British music were we not to take action to demonstrate that this activity is illegal and harmful."
The government welcomed the action, but there is dissent. "Downloading is a great way to find out about music," Franz Ferdinand's lead singer Alex Kapranos has said. "People come up to me and say, 'I downloaded your album, and I can't wait to go out and buy it'."
Blur's Dave Rowntree has accused the BPI of "posturing and spitting like a bunch of schoolyard bullies".
"This will only lead to a bunch of 12-year-olds being taken to court as happened in the States which will serve nobody and nobody will make a penny," he told the NME.
However, music producer Pete Waterman said Blur and Franz Ferdinand were welcome to give away their music if they wanted but to allow it to happen across the industry would damage up-and-coming artists. "There are many young bands out there who can't make a living. There are a few of us who are able to make outrageous statements like we don't want paying. They are the ones with a million in their bank account.
"This is not the NHS. This is music. You buy it. I've never had a problem with paying for my music."
Since the first legal action was launched against individuals in the US last year, 5,700 music fans have been targeted. In Europe, 16 people have been prosecuted in Germany and 40 sued in Denmark. Most have had to pay several thousand euros, based on the number of illegal files they have shared, but one Danish downloader was forced to pay €13,000. The BPI envisages collecting similar sums in Britain
'The record company argument is rubbish' Laurence, 40, is an illegal downloader Friday October 8, 2004The Guardian I was told about WinMX by someone at work. I've downloaded thousands of singles and hundreds of individual music videos since then.
I go back to my early teens when I listened to the top 40 on the radio and taped songs from the radio before eventually going out and buying them. To me, downloading is exactly the same. I will go online and download songs three or four times a week, using WinMX. I've looked at other sites, like KaZaA, but it wasn't right for me. I'm not that computer literate and WinMX is very accessible.
My sons download as well. They will download singles for an hour or so, then I will go online at about 10pm after they have gone to bed. That's when the American market opens up. You tend to get more interesting material coming on in the early hours, like US releases. The new Chris Robinson solo album is the big one at the moment. He is the former lead singer of the Black Crowes and his album isn't being released in the UK, so a lot of people want it.
On the video side, there's amazing Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin concerts from the 60s available online.
I've never burnt a CD and sold it on. It isn't done. You just do it for your own use. I probably spend more on music now since I started downloading. A lot of people I know who download say the same thing.
The quality from illegal file-sharing networks is not as good, which is why if you like what you are downloading you buy it eventually. I downloaded the Libertines' new album the other week. I've got broadband so I can do it in minutes.
The record companies' argument is a load of rubbish. They are doing extremely well at the moment and people are spending more money on music through downloading.
I was under the impression they will only really go for downloaders who are doing it 24/7. But people who are much more computer literate will find ways around it. I'm going to stick with what I'm doing and see what happens. But if the law does get a stranglehold on it then legal sites might be my only outlet.
stefania2