January 21, 2004
RIAA Files John Doe Suits
News.com reports here; EFF’s response here.
Will settlement costs actually be higher? will that encourage more people to fight the suits? will these details even matter for the aggregate, long term effects on file-sharing (that is, will we see more than an unconvincing reported decline)?
Farhad Manjoo does a nice job of covering the current situation and the relevant vagaries. Here’s one interesting quote and a sentiment I want to investigate more:
“‘There are in total billions of files acquired on file-sharing services every month. Compare that with iTunes’ stated ambition of getting 100 million songs in a year. It’s so slight it’s a fraction of a percent. It’s like saying Apple is going to save the music business because they’ll allow people to get 999 files and pay for one.’ [CEO of Big Champagne Eric] Garland says that if iTunes sold ’10 billion songs this year it might be neck and neck with file sharing. And for the Apple iTunes store to marginalize file sharing the way file sharing has marginalized CDs, Apple has to sell trillions of songs. File sharing is a powerful force.'”
Filed by Derek Slater at 2:16 pm under General news
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