Music Industry and P2P Day at the NYT


The NY Times examines various aspects of the P2P and music industry situation with 4 articles and a series of letters to the editor in today’s paper:
Fighting Song Piracy the Willie Wonka Way

Some musicians try to halt online piracy by turning to lawyers. Others have turned to hackers. The rapper Obie Trice, a protégé of Eminem’s, is turning to Willie Wonka. To entice fans to buy his new album “Cheers,” scheduled for release Sept. 23, Mr. Trice and his label, Shady Records, are hiding “golden tickets” inside 3 of the first 500,000 copies released.

Some Advise ‘Everywhere Internet Audio’

nstead of clinging to late-20th-century distribution technologies, like the digital disk and the downloaded file, the music business should move into the 21st century with a revamped business model using innovative technology, several industry experts say. They want the music industry to do unto the file-swapping services what the services did unto the music companies – eclipse them with better technology and superior customer convenience.

Hollywood Faces Online Piracy, but It Looks Like an Inside Job

According to a new study published by AT&T Labs, the prime source of unauthorized copies of new movies on file-sharing networks appears to be movie industry insiders, not consumers. The study is “the first publicly available assessment of the source of leaks of popular movies,” according to its authors.

Crackdown May Send Music Traders Into Software Underground

Hundreds of software developers are racing to create new systems, or modify existing ones, to let people continue to swap music — hidden from the prying eyes of the Recording Industry Association of America, or from any other investigators.

Letters to the Editor: Music Thieves? Or Music Revels?

Andrew Raff @andrewraff