The 'noughties' (forgive me) have brought on massive technical advancements. Who can forget the first adverts from '3 Mobile' bragging about their cellular phone video calls and the first time you could actually download sound and video at a reasonable speed? Dial-up to Broadband, fax to email, Linda to Heather Mills; it's been a crazy decade. And of course, like everything, we the people were not allowed to have our way with these advancements, oh no, as the governments of the world decided to get their grubby hands all over the new tech. Why? Because billions of dollars was at risk in one industry. Would you like to hazard a guess?
It's these fellas. The music industry in the US alone was worth $15bn in 1999, which is an absolutely gigantic amount in anyone's terms. Everything was coming up peaches, and the corporations were raking it in. Then, out of nowhere, revenue fell. Not by a little: takings from the US were only £10.5bn in 2008. How did this happen, you ask? How can one of the biggest consumer industries in the world just lose 30% of its money?
Because Napster came along.
In June 1999, things went wrong (for the businesses, at least). People could now get free music whenever they wanted, as long as they had an internet connection (which would pay for itself after a few downloads). Napster was the first massive file-sharing website that allowed people to give away their tunes. Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker were two American university students who dreamt of a world where you could have what you want, when you want it. They decided to do their bit by creating a piece of software that allowed you to put any data you wanted onto a server and have it downloaded by anyone, anywhere in the world. And of course, things went a bit crazy.
Millions of people used the service to get the latest music albums and those with a fast enough connection the latest films, and before they knew it music corporations were being bled to death by computers. Napster had twenty-seven million users at its peak, making it one of the most popular websites in the world. However, with all this traffic, comes attention.
American band 'Metallica' had their song 'I Disappear' leaked onto Napster a few days before its commercial release, leading to them filing a lawsuit against the service. Dr. Dre saw one of his songs on Napster, and filed a lawsuit as well as delivering the names of users who had downloaded his single to the Ninth Circuit Court. A&M Records also sued Napster, claiming it had infringed copyright. Notice anything about all of these cases? They all involve money. The artists didn't speak a lot about the tracks being leaked: it was more the record labels, i.e. the money spinners. But whoever it was, Napster was shut down and only saw the light of day again after a bailout from a German company following a $26m fee.
And that was the end of Napster as we knew it. But this wasn't the end. People liked what Napster did, and wanted more. £0.79 for one song? Are they joking? £7.99 a dozen? For some people that's disposable income for a whole week. So people sought out different ways to download their music, and huzzah, Limewire, Kazaa, Filetopia and others popped up to help people trod along and search for their free entertainment. But nothing was quite as big as The Pirate Bay.
The Pirate Bay was new. Big. Cocky. Swedish. It was basically an index of the internet. And it was all free. Music, films, applications, books, TV shows, all there. It was more than just a breakthrough: it was a whole new society. And it hated the corporations.
The Pirate Bay showed available torrents (files used to tell your computer what data to download and from where) from all over the world to get you free stuff. And oh my, people lapped it up. To make a long story short, TPB was epic beyond belief and everyone loved it. Well, of course, not everyone, which is why in 2008 the International Fedaration of the Phonographic Industry tried to shut it down. Now of course, the IFPI is a government organisation, so this was purely down to them breaking the law. Don't bring up the fact that the IFPI's American branch is the RIAA, which represents 90% of all music sales in America. I'll just let you think for a minute.
Okay. Now, if you watched the news or went on the internet at all in 2008 or early 2009, you'll know that it was a very long, drawn out case and it ended up in the owners having to pay the absolutely humongous sum of $13m! Which is about 0.05% of music revenue worldwide... anyway! The IFPI got excited, and started demanding that TPB be blocked by internet service providers, with which the cooperative chaps replied "no". So things once again went crazy, and 'Pirates' as they are affectionately known around the world started rebelling, epitomised in the cleverest cartoon I've ever read, posted on The Pirate Bay during the trial:
So, after it all calmed down The Pirate Bay kept running and people kept downloading music, and the corporations stuck there thumbs up their arses and carried on whistling. The convicted had their fines reduced to $3m: the labels had been done. People had had enough: no more monopoly! No more shitty number ones! No more paying for music! It had all happened so fast, and we are yet to see just what else the record labels will pull out of their hats. Coin operated speakers? iPods with a credit card slot? Who knows, but eventually one of two things will happen: one music label will gain a massive monopoly and control the whole industry, or people will act again and see free music be free to be free. Yes. Thank you for reading.
0 comments:
Post a Comment