Canada is one of the top five countries responsible for piracy around the world, along with China, Mexico, Russia and Spain, according to the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus.
The five countries have failed to make progress during the last year, and US intellectual property holders are suffering. Senator Orinn Hatch from Utah went as far as declaring that the “five countries have been robbing Americans”.
The caucus went so far as to release the list of most notorious offender sites. The list includes IsoHunt (Canada), Baidu (China), The Pirate bay (Sweden), Rapidshare (Germany) and RMX4U (Luxembourg).
Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America said the websites facilitate “massive theft”, and asked “Can we create a world in which the Internet becomes a place of order rather than a place of chaos?”.
Thanks to strict laws, most notably the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, pirate sites within the US have become rare, but many popular sites simply relocate.
Source: PHYSorg
Piracy is always going to be around in one way shape or form. What this means though is that a new approach to marketing in the music industry needs to be implemented. For instance when RadioHead released their album on their site for (whatever you want to pay). Thousands of people paid much more than they ever would have in the stores, to support the band that they loved. Of course many people downloaded it for as cheap as they could, or free, but there is always going to be that group of people.
Dude, that’s all well and good for radiohead but it’s simply unfair for an artist to have to drop their hat in the proverbial street and ask for “whatever you can afford”.
Intellectual goods are as valid as tangibles and that must be respected. Granted, the majors had it easy for a very long time and they failed to make any changes to their business model before file sharing cut deeply into their revenues, but it’s absolutely foolish to suggest that media should be dispensed via a “pay what you can” system.
I think the point is not that Radiohead is pioneering the next “business model” for the internet, but just the fact that there are alternatives to artists getting paid 35 cents per album AND being told what to put in their music. As a person who has been signed to a label and seen the industry from the artist’s side, I know for a fact that for music to stay a relevant industry we have to push harder for new avenues of revenue.
Tangible or Intellectual goods are only protected by “respect”. When it comes down to it, on a completely animal level, anyone can steal a car. Yes, there are laws and punishments for it, but the fact remains it’s the person’s own will that prevents them from doing something like that. If you want them to respect the purchase of your music, you have to give them a reason. Even then it’s a crap shoot.