industrial

Copy of RIAA's new enforcement notice to ISPs

The recording industry dropped some big news Friday, announcing that it will no longer take a broad approach to litigating against alleged filed sharers. The Recording Industry Association of America has enlisted the help of internet service providers to act as a sentry and help discourage customers from pirating music.

Below is a copy of the form letter the RIAA will send to ISPs to inform them one of their customers is accused of file sharing. The notification is similar to those the group has sent to college campuses for years and shows very clearly that the group retains the … Read more

The music industry looks to ISPs instead of lawsuits

As reported in Friday's Wall Street Journal, the music industry has apparently given up on suing 13-year olds and dead people in its quest to stem music piracy. Instead, it plans to work with ISPs to identify and notify copyright infringers of the need to come clean:

[T]he Recording Industry Association of America said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet-service providers. The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an email to the provider when it finds a provider's customers … Read more

Sources: RIAA budget will shrink soon

The budget for the music industry's trade group, the Recording Industry Association of America, will soon shrink as the major labels reduce costs and their dependence on file-sharing lawsuits, industry insiders said Friday.

Friday's startling news that the trade group representing the four largest music labels has declared an end to a long-running legal campaign against file sharing will mean a reduced role for the RIAA, which is coming up on its yearly budget review, according to a source close to the group.

But in a climate where digital music sales are growing, though not fast enough to … Read more

RIAA drops lawsuits; ISPs to battle file sharing

Updated at 9:05 a.m. PST To include quotes from the Electronic Frontier Foundation about questions of whether ISPs could blacklist and to clarify that no ISP has agreed to throttle service. Also, see a copy of the RIAA's new enforcement notice to ISPs here.

The music industry's highly controversial strategy of suing customers for file sharing has mostly ended.

The Recording Industry Association of America said Friday that it no longer plans to wage a legal assault against people who it suspects of pirating digital music files. What the RIAA should have said, though, is that … Read more

Piracy: Same as it ever was in the music industry

For those struggling musicians worried by rampant piracy and the subsequent difficulties in earning a living, Tim Blanning has news for you: it was ever thus.

Writing in The New Statesman, Blanning traces the history of the music industry, finding "Modern musicians' lot compares very well to that of their predecessors." Indeed, Blanning points out the very bane of modern musicians' existence - the ability to record (and, hence, copy and distribute) music - is also the very reason that musicians have an opportunity to generate outsized returns on their musical investments.

Until music could be recorded, the … Read more

Reselling MP3s: The music industry's new battleground?

A new digital music service is getting lots of attention for proposing to help consumers sell their used MP3s in much the same way people once unloaded second-hand albums.

Bopaboo has generated splashy headlines recently for coming up with what on the surface seems like a good idea. Music fans have always exercised their first-sale rights, which under copyright law, allows them to sell their unwanted CDs, tapes, and albums without permission from the copyright owner. Why can't they do the same with digital music?

But there are dramatic differences between physical and digital music. For this reason, Washington, … Read more

Don't hold your breath for DRM-free iTunes news

Rumors coming out of Europe that claim Apple will begin offering unprotected music files from the three largest recording companies on Tuesday are bogus, according to my music-industry sources.

Yes, Apple is in negotiations with the three biggest music labels, Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group about acquiring licenses to sell music free of digital rights management software.

No, none of the deals is final as of Monday afternoon and one source told me it's unlikely Apple will have anything to announce regarding DRM-free music from the top labels before the end of the year. According … Read more

We need solutions to industry 'bugs,' not critics

Stuart Cohen made news by declaring that the open-source business model is broken (when, in fact, it's not: just one particular, outdated and out-moded model is).

Now Alan Frazier, a prominent venture capitalist, is declaring that the venture capital model is broken.

Meanwhile, pundits are also declaring that the auto industry is broken (It is.), the finance industry is broken, the housing market is broken, health care is broken, and so on.

Have you caught the chorus yet? "Everything is broken" is how it goes.

Easy words when the world appears to be falling apart. But we … Read more

Energy guru Lovins to carmakers: Time for big bets

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Amory Lovins, a renowned author and big thinker on energy, specializes in making the impossible real.

His 4,000-square-foot Colorado home has no furnace, uses a few dollars' worth of electricity a month, and features an indoor tropical garden with banana trees and papaya plants. In conversation, he's quick to pull out his iPhone to show a car prototype inspired by the Hypercar, which is three to five times more efficient than conventional cars.

He's the chief scientist and co-founder of nonprofit advisory firm Rocky Mountain Institute, which develops environmentally friendly solutions using business as a … Read more