Music professionals risk losing job unless industry fights back
Posted on 21/01/03 18:53 by Dennis                             
Music professionals risk losing job unless industry fights back

Last Sunday a top official of the music industry, Jay Berman, has said that Europe's 600,000 music professionals risk losing their jobs unless the industry fights back.

According to Mr. Berman the music professionals are all potential victims of online music piracy. Music creators and rights holders who are denying their right to choose how their music is used and enjoyed are paying the price:


The music industry is facing its fourth straight year of declining sales. Executives blame the rise of Internet file-sharing services such as Grokster, Kazaa and Morpheus, plus rampant CD copying by consumers and organized criminal groups.

Compared to the United States, which has the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, Europe lacks strong laws that would penalize individuals for distributing and reproducing copyrighted materials such as music, films and software.

Undeterred, Berman said the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) would step up its litigation efforts against online piracy on behalf of its music label trade members, targeting individuals who download who download many songs.


The article also mentions Berman criticizing British pop star Robbie Williams, who Saturday called file-sharing "great." "There's nothing anybody can do about it," Williams said at a news conference, a statement that later struck a nerve with music executives.

Source: Yahoo!News

Reactions
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By zulu9812, Tue 21 Jan 2003 22:08
zulu9812What Mr Berman meant to say was that a vast number of that 600,000 workforce would be sacrificed so as to keep costs down and allow Mr Berman to keep earning his nice big fat paycheques. ;r
By Nuke001, Tue 21 Jan 2003 22:59
Aye aye, greed is all about greed. My PreCIOUS! :9
By Guest, Tue 21 Jan 2003 23:03
Targetting individuals that download many songs: That's as scarry as hell. I hate the IFPI. There nothing but a worthless piece of junk that deserves to rot in hell. Anyone who'd be responsible for targetting an individual downloading or copying something deserves to rot in hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Understand retard IFPI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By Ian, Wed 22 Jan 2003 02:20
I can't feel bad for them. You need to change with the times. No one cried when the automobile came around and all of the horse carriage manufacturers lost their jobs.
By Guest, Wed 22 Jan 2003 03:46
For once I have to agree with Wolverine18. Targeting users that download a lot of songs isn't the way to fix their problem. If the music industry would stop putting out crap music - bubblegum music as I call it - and lowered the price of CDs, then they would be having so many problems. Why is it that I can go to the store and purchse a 50 pack of blank audio CDs for $12 US and record all my old vinyl on it and the record companies get their blanks for like 1/1000th of a penny for a blank and yet they seem to lose money.
By Guest, Wed 22 Jan 2003 04:56
TheTarbaby, what price would you consider fair for one CD? What if that CD only had three songs you actually liked? What reasons could you have for buying a CD instead of using a p2p program and downloading a whole album in under 30 minutes? Sorry if that seems harsh, but your first sentence threw me off. Should we ask Wolverine18 how many CD's and DVD's he has bought in the last two years?
By Guest, Wed 22 Jan 2003 06:45
Well, I have personally bought roughly 25 CDs and 11 DVDs in the past 2 years. I think $12 US per CD is fair or $1.50 US per song is fair. I believe the record companies should devise a system that allows a user to download which ever song they want for that price from some site. They could embed a code in the music file that includes your valid name, address, email and credit card number and after verified, you get the file(s) you paid for. Like a PGP string. And if you share those files with someone else and it appears on the net and it has your signature string in it, you should be held accountable. That is how I believe the record companies could recover and put an end to p2p of current music on the net. Granted, it won't stop it completely because some of the songs out there are out of print and impossible to get on tape or vinyl. Does anyone have a problem with that? If you only like a few songs, then why not be able to pay for just those songs?
By GezusK, Wed 22 Jan 2003 08:00
GezusKUmm...its crap music, yet users are downloading a lot of it? Its not just the current music being downloaded, its all that old good music too.
By Guest, Wed 22 Jan 2003 08:57
Funny what the responces would be if you were the one loosing their job.
By Guest, Wed 22 Jan 2003 12:36
Imagine what the response would be if hilary rosen poseted here about losing her job!
By Hypnosis4U2NV, Wed 22 Jan 2003 19:57
Hypnosis4U2NVGood for them.. Now they can get real world jobs with real world pay. It wouldnt surprise me that even these ex-music professionals now start to use P2P and download music as well! Everyone who bitches about music piracy and P2P dont realize that average people dont bring home the money they do. I certainly cant afford to buy an entire CD filled with crap just for a song I like. What is the music industry going to do? Deny me the right to listen to music? Back in the 80's I never heard of them going around trying to stop radio stations playing songs so that they could get people to stop recording it off the air on cassette tape! Now we use computers and thats different!
By Guest, Wed 22 Jan 2003 21:52
But this is wonderful news: They fire these people, reduce costs, and lower CD prices! FINALLY! OK - Doesn't solve *all* problems just yet... They still have the copy protection nonsense to get rid of... but at least it constitutes some kind of a start... or doesn't it???
By Guest, Thu 23 Jan 2003 12:19
They can't target individuals without infringing on individual rights -- which means they can b counter-sued for damages. If millions of consumers/users sued dem -- who's goin' to lose out in da end?! Prices of music CD will remain da same whether Ks of musicians are out of work. Record company will just have to find some more "good" musicians from da street, dressed and sexed dem up and make dem sing. All in all, Berman is play scaremonger -- only da fainted-heart will find his comments alarming -- da rest of us would say: Up yours Berman, U STUPID DICKStick Out TongueD!
By Seán, Thu 23 Jan 2003 13:40
SeánMaybe some day when they figure out a solution, one will pop on to a Music website, select 'Create a new CD', select the tracks they want on it (say varying from $0.30 for old music to $1.50 for charts) and click order. Pay by credit card, etc. and have the custom created CD shipped to their doorstep Smilie If they done something like this, one would no longer have to complain about having to buy a full album just for a certain song and this way, they have just the music they love and get it on CD (or DVD-Audio, etc.) and not in some ugly compressed codec such as WMA, AAC, etc.

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