Americans are mad about baseball, so much so that the terminology used there has been extended to their legal system. The Three Strikes Law in the USA means any criminal who has been convicted three times or more receives a more serious punishment. This baseball phrase has been picked up by many other countries and in France it has been given a whole new application. There, the three strikes law is applied to electronic stealing (also known as electronic piracy) from the Internet in the form of illegal downloading and/or file-sharing those downloads with others. And anyone caught doing this three times or more will have their access to the Internet blocked.
But preventing people from gaining access to the Internet is a contentious issue. The EU (European Union) has officially stated that it is a fundamental human right to be able to use the Internet. But the ethical issues that have arisen from the Three Strikes Law are nothing in comparison to the complications of trying to enforce such a ruling. HADOPI, another name for the Three Strikes Law, which is short for the High Authority for Copyright Protection and Dissemination of Works on the Internet, have illustrated how easy it is to become an electronic pirate - even inadvertently. HADOPI designed a new logo to advertise their presence. Unfortunately they did not examine the source of the font they used and it turned out to be a font that France Telecom had the sole rights to. Hence those trying to enforce a law against piracy were guilty of that very crime. This "mistake" clearly demonstrated that the extent of the problem, a lesson they could have learned from the music industry
A large part of the problem is a result of the greed of the music industry. As long as the price of DVDs (both music and films) is so high then piracy will continue to flourish. Steve Knopper in his book "Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age" (2009) explains how the industry hasn't changed with the times but stuck to old business models that are outdated. A perfect example of their attitude towards the new age was Napster, an on-line peer-to-peer file sharing music service that operated between 1999-2001. Before the record companies closed it down Napster had approximately 26 million users and according to Knopper, Napster should have been negotiated with rather than sued since "that was the last chance for the record industry, as we know it, to stave off certain ruin."
The introduction of the iPod in 2001, followed by MP3 players and the development of mobile phones to accommodate music files were the final nails in the coffin of the music industry. Dr. Michael Bull of Sussex University in Britain has done extensive research on the impact of the iPod. One of his discoveries is that most users spend their money on the actual equipment and download the music illegally. Knopper says he would like to see the music industry make downloading a better legal alternative so that the "free" route would become redundant and iTunes supports his claim. In a Newsweek interview in 2006, Steve Jobs explained that "if you want to stop piracy, the way to stop it is by competing with it, by offering a better product at a fair price. In essence, we [Apple, who owns iTunes] would make a deal with people. If they would pay a fair price, we would give them a better product and they would stop being pirates."
Between the years 2000 and 2008 the music industry's profits diminished by $4 billion. However while the industry is in a state of decline many of the musicians are doing quite well. They are choosing to go with the new electronic reality and upload their material onto web sites such as, MySpace Music, where music lovers, who understand the dangers that piracy creates for the artist, will pay the $10 to download the material and ensure the artist makes an income. Thus the artists and their supporters have discovered a way of communicating. The problem for the record companies is, that this method does not make them part of the equation.
If the music industry does not succeed in finding a place in the 21st century it will continue to decline and finally become obsolete. They need to find a relevant role in a new reality. The industry has undergone several significant musical changes in the past. They have moved from rock to pop to rap. But even while they danced to the new music genres, they have not moved from a business system that is outdated. And unless the industry finds a way to adjust to this new era they will find themselves discarded for other systems that have heard the sound of the new drums beating.
But preventing people from gaining access to the Internet is a contentious issue. The EU (European Union) has officially stated that it is a fundamental human right to be able to use the Internet. But the ethical issues that have arisen from the Three Strikes Law are nothing in comparison to the complications of trying to enforce such a ruling. HADOPI, another name for the Three Strikes Law, which is short for the High Authority for Copyright Protection and Dissemination of Works on the Internet, have illustrated how easy it is to become an electronic pirate - even inadvertently. HADOPI designed a new logo to advertise their presence. Unfortunately they did not examine the source of the font they used and it turned out to be a font that France Telecom had the sole rights to. Hence those trying to enforce a law against piracy were guilty of that very crime. This "mistake" clearly demonstrated that the extent of the problem, a lesson they could have learned from the music industry
A large part of the problem is a result of the greed of the music industry. As long as the price of DVDs (both music and films) is so high then piracy will continue to flourish. Steve Knopper in his book "Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age" (2009) explains how the industry hasn't changed with the times but stuck to old business models that are outdated. A perfect example of their attitude towards the new age was Napster, an on-line peer-to-peer file sharing music service that operated between 1999-2001. Before the record companies closed it down Napster had approximately 26 million users and according to Knopper, Napster should have been negotiated with rather than sued since "that was the last chance for the record industry, as we know it, to stave off certain ruin."
The introduction of the iPod in 2001, followed by MP3 players and the development of mobile phones to accommodate music files were the final nails in the coffin of the music industry. Dr. Michael Bull of Sussex University in Britain has done extensive research on the impact of the iPod. One of his discoveries is that most users spend their money on the actual equipment and download the music illegally. Knopper says he would like to see the music industry make downloading a better legal alternative so that the "free" route would become redundant and iTunes supports his claim. In a Newsweek interview in 2006, Steve Jobs explained that "if you want to stop piracy, the way to stop it is by competing with it, by offering a better product at a fair price. In essence, we [Apple, who owns iTunes] would make a deal with people. If they would pay a fair price, we would give them a better product and they would stop being pirates."
Between the years 2000 and 2008 the music industry's profits diminished by $4 billion. However while the industry is in a state of decline many of the musicians are doing quite well. They are choosing to go with the new electronic reality and upload their material onto web sites such as, MySpace Music, where music lovers, who understand the dangers that piracy creates for the artist, will pay the $10 to download the material and ensure the artist makes an income. Thus the artists and their supporters have discovered a way of communicating. The problem for the record companies is, that this method does not make them part of the equation.
If the music industry does not succeed in finding a place in the 21st century it will continue to decline and finally become obsolete. They need to find a relevant role in a new reality. The industry has undergone several significant musical changes in the past. They have moved from rock to pop to rap. But even while they danced to the new music genres, they have not moved from a business system that is outdated. And unless the industry finds a way to adjust to this new era they will find themselves discarded for other systems that have heard the sound of the new drums beating.
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