HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why is file sharing software not a cure for the RIAA disease?

3 points by brooksbp ↗ HN
"A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom. Something is broken when Sony and Universal are suing children. Actually, at least two things are broken: the software that file sharers use, and the record labels' business model." [1]

1) Why is file sharing software not a cure for the RIAA disease? 2) How is Grooveshark, Spotify, Pandora, etc any better than p2p? I can still listen for free.

[1] http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html

7 comments

[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 25.6 ms ] thread
bediger4000
I suppose that P2P file sharing will eventually end up doing away with "major labels" and the RIAA. The major labels and RIAA just had a lot of money and contracts to begin with. The influence lent them by the money and contracts (lobbying, PR campaigns, law suits) has let them hang on for a while, as file sharing nibbles the foundations of the business from under them.

There's also clearly a societal component. We believe that "artists" own the music, even when legally, they may or may not. The PR campaigns referenced above tend to support societal concepts like "owning" ideas or riffs or sequences of notes. It will just take a while for the population who believes in owning ideas or concepts to turn over.

In the meantime, the RIAA thrives.

paulhauggis
The RIAA thrives because most artists don't know how (or have the money) to market themselves. Without the marketing, it becomes very difficult to even make a living.

It's very similar to the reasons why a startup wants venture capital.

brooksbp
"Without the marketing, it becomes very difficult to even make a living."

Isn't this less true now that we have Youtube, Facebook, Soundcloud, etc...? It's totally possible to go viral.

benologist
1) Currently file sharing focuses on consuming content, not creating it, and usually it's facilitated by people who's only objective is to profiteer from copyright infringement rather than any greater good.

2) Those companies pay royalties for the music you listen to. Some arguably insulting portion of that revenue goes or is supposed to go to the artists. When you go to TPB and view a bunch of ads and popups and shit you are only paying the site owners.

brooksbp
Is there a reason why those companies use a client-server service model rather than a p2p model?
[deleted]
(comment deleted)