Major Scene MP3 Pre-Release Group Busted By Police

This is how a story read on torrent freak starts off:

A major online warez release group has been severely disrupted after a police and music industry investigation. A contender for the most prolific in its field, the group has suffered arrests, with the latest coming yesterday after police and the BPI conducted an early morning raid.

I have a serious issue with this scenario. Global theft of "property rights" is more rampant now than ever before in the history of the music business. I have heard arguments from both sides of the issue, i.e., consumers want better music, consumers want lower retail prices, consumers want to be able to control the way music is delivered to them, artists want more control over their property rights, artists want to get paid a fair slice of the pie from the record labels and distributors they are signed to,etc, etc. The problem with this is that while consumers and artists continue to blame one another, "fat Cat" record labels and distributors keep raking in the revenue, whether you like it or not. The root of the problem lies in the same circle of greedy "Fat Cats" that control the content, the pricing, the dleivery systems, etc. So all that rage, that anger, needs to be pointed towards where the real problems exist.

If more artists would take this business as just that, "business", instead of concentrating on fame, glory, pop status, and not depend so much on others to take control of the business side of their careers, more artists would likely be getting compensated what they should. Bottom line, no one holds a gun to your head and tells you to sign anything, or not learn about the industry you are getting yourselves in. Would you fill out an application without reading it, and not be trained to work at, let's say, hmmm!, General Motors as an assembly person or at a hospital as a nurse without training? Can you imagine the mess that could possibly happen if that was the case. You should be treating your music career in the same light. It is totally up to you, the artist, to find out what is music publishing, a sliding scaled, what the term recoupable means to you as an artist, what are mechanical rights, etc. no one is going to hold your hand and "walk you to class", you need to get as much reading resources, and visit as many web sites as you can on the "business of music", before signing anything.

On the other hand, consumers nned to pump the brakes a little bit, and realize what is happening in the industry is not the fault of the artists, so when you steal, you steal from them as well, besides the labels and distributors. Voice your opinions to the MMA, RIAA, NARAS, etc.. Let them know how you as a consumer and them as a company need one another to survive. Fighting back by stealing is not the answer on either side. There are those however that will steal regardless of what transpires between both parties.

There's an analogous situation in the retail industry. Shrinkage (shoplifting and employee theft) is a constant threat. Retailers spend lots of money on anti-theft measures -- Sensormatic tags, security cameras, and the like. Nobody's fooling themselves into thinking that they're going to put a stop to it for good... they're just keeping it under control.

Simply because something can't be controlled 100% does not mean that you should "give it up." In the retail industry, shoplifting is a fact of life, and whether you produce music or business applications or movies or games, piracy is a fact of life. Just as you and I understand this, the entertainment industry understands this as well.

That's why they do what they can (e.g. busting the major distributors) but there's little sense in "giving it up."

DRM in the music industry is pretty much dead. Amazon was the first major music store to drop it, Apple followed, and I'm sure we'll see more. It used to be that people said they pirated music because of DRM. The music industry did what we asked them to do -- they stopped with the DRM. But piracy is bigger than ever.

Pirates like to tell the music industry to "adapt to survive." But that's what they've quietly been doing. CD prices have gone into freefall, DRM is almost dead, online selection is pretty damn good, and iTunes has been the number one music store for some time now. Whether we love them or hate them, they give people what they want. As much music as people pirate, people are also buying lots of music as well.