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Illegal downloads are killing newborn babies

I apologise for the ridiculous title for today's column, however it is no worse than the new claims being made by the recording and movie industries.

In Europe, they're claiming that illegal downloads via the internet have cost an astonishing 2.7 million jobs.

It's a shame they don't drink Tui's beer over there because the first thing that comes to my mind is the phrase "yeah, right!"

But wait, there's more...

The same report, commissioned for The International Chamber of Commerce claims that within 5 years, the losses attributable to internet piracy will top US$43 billion.

More beer please!

How do these people come up with such ridiculous figures?

Well some insight into the methodologies used are contained in this story from The Register.

According to The Reg's story, the recording industry claims that for every CD legally purchased, one is also illegally downloaded to give a purchase/piracy ratio of 1:1. Independent academic studies however place this figure at a far more believable 10:1.

There's also a comment that suggest piracy is rampant because the loss in CD sales has not been totally offset by the increase in legal digital downloads.

Well hello! Could that be because people are now more easily able to just download the individual tracks they like, rather than being forced to buy an entire album containing a couple of goodies and another 8-10 tracks of dross?

Might this sales volume slump be as much due to a quality control issue as piracy?

I admit that I'm now a bit old to be making "informed" commentary on the contemporary music scene but it strikes me that the recording industry has shifted its focus from quality to quantity. There seems to be an awful lot of new artists popping up and trying to build a career (and album sales) on a single formulaic hit, contrived by professional songwriters, clever sound-engineering and a catchy combination of beat and bass.

It also seems that if you are of suitable ethnic persuasion, can swear, are able to string enough words together to say something about killing cops and talk to a beat then you too can become the next gangsta rapper -- at least while you get your fortnight of fame and the studios milk what they can from you.

Then there's the issue of the crazy "what if" scenarios that recording and movie studios seem to base their losses on.

Just because little Johnny downloads a track or an album doesn't mean that he'd have spent his hard-earned cash on buying the same thing legally. Marketers know that there's a value-point for all products. If you position your price above this value point, people won't buy because they consider it to be "too expensive". Position the price below the value point and it will sell because people consider it to be worth the money.

To assume that every download is a lost sale shows naivety at best and a deliberate intention to mislead on the part of the industries concerned.

Likewise, the industry has come up with some "pie in the sky" projections as to the sales growth they would like to see. They then look at the actual sales figures and immediately assume that the difference is down to online piracy.

Sorry guys -- plenty of other industries have plateaued for wide number of reasons other than piracy.

Do you think there is a consortium of typewriter manufacturers somewhere about to issue a press release claiming that their sales have plummeted due to people obviously downloading illegal typewriters over the internet?

Of course not. The typewriter manufacturers are smart enough to realise that their market has changed and that they can't just keep flogging their IBM Golf-Ball machines to customers who are demanding word processors instead.

Of course the "creative" industries have been bitching and moaning about piracy ever since the introduction of the tape-recorder and VCR but now they're getting really desperate in their tactics.

Apparently, calling the "thieves" who steal their content "pirates" is too good for them and there are moves afoot to scuttle the title "pirate" in favour of something more sinister.

And, in Britain, they're really trying to dictate new legislation designed to protect their profits and "licence to extort".

In some ways it's kind of funny to watch the death throes of an industry that's rapidly approaching its "best-by" date. Like a frog in a slowly warmed bowl of water, the studios are screaming and shouting about the injustice of it all, seemingly unaware that all they need to do is take a single hop out of that bowl and into the cool calm of an exciting (and profitable) new mindset that could begat entirely new business models.

The way I see it, these people are either lazy or stupid. Probably both.

The good thing is that it opens the door for a whole new generation of music/movie entrepreneur to simply walk right on past the still-warm corpse of the "old-school" publishers.

Personally, I can't wit for that day.

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