Last month, the Daily published an editorial that wrote "the downloading issue is not one which will go away any time soon." Indeed, the issue is back, as last week the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sent a letter to Tufts that listed 15 IP addresses of Tufts students who had illegally shared music on peer-to-peer networks. Tufts now has to notify these students of their legal options - accept lawsuits from the RIAA or pay pre-lawsuit settlements.
The Daily's editorial implied that downloading will remain an issue because "it is likely that our standards will begin to change as the Internet continues shaping most aspects of our lives." This statement is admittedly vague - what standards are we talking about? Are we talking about those of listeners, musicians, or the recording industry? What are these standards and how do these different parties define them?
Each of these groups - listeners, musicians and the recording industry - have interests that can be summed up in simple economic terms. Musicians produce music with the help of the recording industry, which makes a profit off of this music. Listeners want to consume this music.
The ubiquity and ease of the Internet is changing the basic producer-consumer relationship, and the recording industry is not the only one to be hit with these shifts. A look at the newspaper industry, close to home for us here at the Daily, shows a similar predicament, but a much different corporate response.
Most newspapers publish at least some of their content free of charge online, and most major daily papers have separate online departments that jazz up, augment and repackage their online content. Whereas in the past newspapers were enjoyed page by page over a morning cup of coffee, more and more people are now getting their news in their inbox, rather than on their porch step.
Last month the New York Times eliminated its TimesSelect feature, making all of its online content free for all.
This shift, driven by the demand for online content has forced newspapers to change the way they do business. Now that the news they offer is free online, fewer consumers will buy physical newspapers. To compensate for the lost profit this market change creates, newspapers now depend more and more on Internet advertising. In short, the growth of the Internet has changed the process, incentives and considerations of the newspaper industry, and these changes reflect a flexible, forward-thinking industry able and willing to adapt to changing technologies.
The music industry has taken no such stance. More and more, listeners are getting their music through the Internet, just as readers are increasingly getting their news online. But while newspapers are embracing this trend and searching for ways to make up the lost profit (i.e. advertising), the plethora of lawsuits filed by the RIAA indicates that the recording industry has made no plans to follow suit.
Perhaps it is time for the industry to start thinking about restructuring. To be sure, this is easier said than done. Offering free music would certainly change the economic basis of the music industry, and require a change in where the industry gets the majority of its profits. But right now, that industry is losing customers every day to file-sharing networks, customers that will be lost for good if the trend continues.
Illegal downloading has caused a lot of problems, but the three market participants involved are likely to stay disgruntled unless the industry figures out how to adapt to the age of the Internet.
