File Sharing Ruling
It has been widely reported that United States District Court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that certain file sharing networks were legal to operate.
Judge Stephen Wilson of United States District Court ruled that Grokster and StreamCast Networks, which offers the Morpheus peer-to-peer software, are not guilty of copyright infringement. The judge said those services - unlike Napster, an earlier music-swapping software company - were essentially no different from the companies that created the videocassette recorder, which also allowed consumers to make their own copies.
Back when it was an issue, I believed that this was the proper way to treat the Napster network, and I agree with this ruling. But I am increasingly concerned about the file-sharing phenonena. This will surely set off an entire rash of emails about why the RIAA is a bunch of pig-headed controlling luddites, and why file-sharing is good for everyone involved and should be embraced everyone involved. I have few issues with the first of these assertions, but I am increasingly concerned about the second one.
A popular assertion has been that file sharing was in fact good for music sales, because it allowed people to ‘try out’ songs, which if they like they can later buy. There have been some studies that provide evidence going both ways on this, however I see two flaws in most of the ones I have read about. The first is that they are based on surveying users. This opens them up to a significant amount of bias in phrasing the questions and picking the users. Also, many file sharerers know they are supposed to think that file sharing makes them buy more CDs. I find the 11% decline in sales of recorded CDs on top of a 40% rise in sales of blank CDs more compelling evidence than these surveys. (The numbers are from the Wired piece The Year The Music Dies, which both asserts that the music industry is doomed and questions whether this is a bad thing.) The second is that all this measures is current activity. Even if current file sharing is raising music sales, there are some strong reasons to believe that as time goes on this wil