What a stir. The recent post about file sharing and its discontents by our very own Neil Perry had plenty of you chipping in - some defending the file sharers, others suggesting the damage it can cause on the musical fringes.
Also among Tuesday's readers was Matt Phillips, a spokesperson for the BPI, who contacted us yesterday. Here's what he said:
I work for the BPI and, yes, I love music. So I want to correct a few of the misapprehensions in the recent posts on file sharing:
1) That record companies saw the internet as a "threat and not a money-making opportunity". It's obvious why illegal peer-to-peer is a problem - it helps people take other people's property without permission. But our 340 member record companies are very aware of the positive potential of the internet. Unfortunately potential doesn't necessarily translate into a sustainable business. In order to create a sustainable business, you first need time and money.
The P2P model has great potential in terms of delivering content, but it obviously becomes more complicated if your starting-point is that you're going to pay people rather than steal their work. That takes time. The good news is that legal P2P operators like Mashboxx are emerging.
2) Neil Perry's assertion that file sharers keep the music industry "ticking over very nicely". A huge quantity of research suggests otherwise. Illegal file sharing clearly has an overall negative effect on music purchasing.
3) "But is the music industry going to listen to us, or carry on trying to punish us?" If you define "us" as music fans who want to download music, I'd say that the availability of over one million songs across more than 30 legal UK digital music services amounts to listening, not punishing. Or if you define "us" as illegal file sharers, you're right. They can expect to be punished.
Our requirement is modest - that internet users stick to legal services to get music and don't illegally distribute our members' music over the internet.
4) Finally, the P2P phenomenon is nothing like home taping. There is a world of difference between running off a C90 for a mate and illegally distributing digital copies of songs to millions of people simultaneously. In principle there is no difference between cassette piracy and internet piracy, but the sheer scale of the infringements on the internet means they cannot be ignored.
Unauthorised file sharing is illegal and undermines our members' rights. For more than a year we have explicitly warned that we will defend our rights under the law if needs be.
Of course we all like to get something for nothing. But that is no excuse for illegal file sharing, and it is no excuse for breaking the law.
Matt Phillips BPI
So there you go. The BPI's view. Do you buy it?
