Chasing Music Pirates

Without doubt, nothing animates the executives who run the major music labels more that the fact that piracy is common. However, given the levels of reported piracy, I have always wondered whether the strong enforcement approach that holders of digital rights in music adopt is the best way to spend their money. Owen Gibson reports in the Guardian here that piracy in respect of digital piracy is growing. Measured against the aggressive efforts by the top music selling corporations to disrupt peer to peer distribution networks in addition to engaging in legal suits against operators of the networks, the return appears to be extremely modest. I have argued here before that much of the response from the main music majors in respect to piracy appears to be ill-informed.

Since legal downloads exist side by side with illegal downloads, it may be of more benefit to seek an understanding of the considerations informing the decision to purchase legal downloads while retaining an affinity for illegal downloads too. Because their clients are internet savvy and committed to sharing music, it is unlikely that this fight can be won at reasonable cost unless the internet was completely shut down. The paradigm has shifted and good money should not be spent fighting the digital sharers when it could be used to enhance the experience regarding legal downloads.It seems as if the opportunity cost to his single minded approach to stopping all sharing is rather high.