by John Tyler

Created on: December 10, 2009

The article “Illegal Downloaders Spend More on Music Than Those Who Obey the Law” continues on par with a number of recent reports that suggest the same community that the RIAA targets and suggests are delinquent criminals stealing the music the companies they represent own the rights to are actually the same people who most support the recording industry. This might come as a surprise to most but the more we study the current era of transition to the digital marketplace the more we find that this might not actually be that surprising of a trend.

As Cory Doctrow suggests, and acts on, the digital opportunities that exist because of the internet actually give record labels, Hollywood, and the other corporate interests who fear the internet their best shot at being profitable in the coming years. Lawrence Lessig emphasizes how fair-use of copyrighted material has, since the existence of copyright laws, made for a tremendous amount of new, “remixed,” material. This all comes while the press continues to warn about the threat of being prosecuted for online theft and discourage the use and experimentation with new Peer2Peer technologies, the same reports that control the knowledge of what is and what is not legal online to the public. These distorted reports give parents and people new to the technology the impression that by participating in any form of file sharing they are breaking the law, when in reality file sharing can be a very effective tool in the arenas of academics, software development, and a number of other areas.

The two parties, that of the fearful industry and the other made of online communities utilizing the technology, couldn’t be going in more opposite directions either. The study comes on the eve of legislation being proposed in the UK and being drafted in the United States that would make repeat offenders unable to access the internet. The research shows that the people downloading music actually purchase more music than the people not downloading at all. The reason? The people downloading music are more engaged in seeking music that they enjoy, some use Peer2Peer services to demo music that they are interested in then purchase the music they enjoy. Of course there are those that download the music and never purchase music from the labels, but by seeking to punish criminals and protect the recording industry “victims,” as the last forty years of lawmaking has been so prone to doing, the corporate and

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