*LONDON CALLING

A recent poll in the UK concluded that 44% of 12-15 year-old boys think downloading music and films for free shouldn’t be illegal. Keep in mind that these individuals are the present and immediate future of  music consumers. This information may be upsetting to those in the industry who still practice the old model, but for those in the business of creating and innovating the future of music sales, this just means that there is an incredible market for alternative models.

The facts are there. People ARE pirating music and most of them don’t feel bad about it. In 2003, the RIAA began suing individuals who partook in the pirating festivities, regardless of the amount of songs or content downloaded. Since then, more than 35,000 people have been sued by the RIAA at a rate of per song that was downloaded. This clearly hasn’t scared consumers enough to stop the freight train since piracy currently causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings, and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues, $291 million in personal income tax and $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes.  For copies of the report, please visit www.ipi.org.

This number should have an impact on those losing the money, and it does, but it has yet to drive them to adopt a new model. Yes, these new web phenomena are giving us hope and the RIAA is investigating new methods, but it’s time to make a decision and press on. So please Mr.. Sherman, seriously consider adopting a new method for making money in this new music  market…

-DJ MAGIC