The Music industry and filesharing
Now lets be clear about this the illegal distribution of copyrighted material via file sharing is completely wrong in all respects, as laid down in the new digital bill passing through Parliament at the moment.
However it can also be said that the illegal copying of material has happened ever since the first technology appeared be it tape or CD the only difference here is the medium be which the copied material is distributed i.e the Internet, which truth be known the music industry as well as the film industry completely misread .
This is why they are in a panic they have come to party late and found their seat isn’t there and are trying to muscle in late in the game, for bands legal file sharing is perfect in that it is cheap for them to distribute their music commercially and some respect removes the record label from its traditional position as the only route to market.
This is trully why the record companies are against filesharing one it does potentially reduce income from copyrighted material and for established bands that can be an issue, although it has been shown from recent studies that people who file share actual buy more music than other groups and mainly use file sharing to sample music.
The real issue is that file sharing be it illegal or legal represents a break in the control the record companies have had in what is released and is completely disruptive to their business models.
In the end thats is what they are businesses who are out to make as much profit as possible by actively restricting routes to market in the end this can only lead to an inbred music scene with carbon copy bands.