The mass unlicensed and illegal distribution of music online has had a devastating effect on nearly every facet of the music business. Here, Music Week speaks to some of the key organisations and software companies at the forefront of the industry’s fight against piracy...
Gone are the days of bootlegging live shows with a tape recorder under a coat. The digital revolution, which brought about countless promotional and revenue generating opportunities, also produced a vast platform on which music piracy has been able to flourish. File hosting services (cyber lockers), peer-to-peer (P2P) torrent sites, grey market and User Generated Content (UGC) sites have made it easy to share and obtain music illegally while, at the same time, providing uploaders and hosts of pirated content with several different income streams.
According to Audiolock’s Music Anti-Piracy Best Practice Guide, the three main types of income are from premium funded, advertising funded and cyberlockers. These services are costing the global music industry billions each year, and the livelihoods of hardworking music professionals, from songwriters and composers, to artists, labels and publishers, engineers, producers and countless others, are affected as a result.
The industry is rallying together to deal with the issue, with a range of measures already having been implemented, with further initiatives in the works, but could anything have been done to prevent, rather than cure the proliferation of copyrighted file sharing?
“A faster, more accepting and collaborative reaction to the rise of Napster and other P2P platforms would have been a game changer,” suggests Ben Rush, founder and CEO of anti-piracy service AudioLock (pictured).
“Instead of adopting the combative stance taken at the time by the industry towards these and similar services, the industry could have reached out and tried to embrace these new technologies and services in order to take a positive lead which would have likely better served everyone.”
Simon Bourn, head of litigation, enforcement and anti-piracy at PRS for Music, suggests that piracy was an inevitable outcome of the “unprecedented technological change” brought about by the digital revolution. “The business models that existed a decade or so ago were hugely impacted by the arrival of the internet into consumers’ homes and the rapid development of online services,” says Bourn.
“Certain forms of online piracy, e.g. P2P, have now been reduced, demonstrating that the industry is making progress in addressing the problem, but there is still a lot more that can be done, provided we work together with government, law enforcement and major DSPs.”
Andy Chatterley, a Grammy-nominated record producer and co-founder of anti-piracy services company, Muso, says: “Hindsight is a marvellous thing. I have had so many conversations in the past about how we should have embraced, or bought Napster, or never agreed certain terms and conditions with download stores. [But] the digital arena and piracy is a very fluid situation and we can’t always approach it with old values of business. We have to see the larger picture, we need visionary people involved in these decisions.”
British Academy of Songwriters, Composers & Authors (BASCA) CEO Vick Bain believes that the rise of music piracy was beyond the control of the music industry to fix on its own. “This is a societal problem that requires legislation both here and internationally,” says Bain. “If we could all walk into supermarkets and grab our weekly shop for free, I am sure many would take advantage. Some would resist out of principle, but many would not and the farming industry would collapse.
“[Websites that infringe on copyright] make unfathomable amounts of money from my members’ works. They pay virtually no tax, are answerable to no one and they can claim safe harbour. The only way this will succeed is if they are forced. We’ve asked them nicely, and they have resentfully ‘tweaked’ their algorithms. We need all infringing sites removed permanently from the internet and the laws to enforce it internationally.”
Rush adds: “The truth is, that commercial piracy quite simply reduces income, damages brand and conveys none of the passion and feeling that might have been intended by an artist. There is some excellent work being done by trade bodies like the BPI and IFPI, especially in terms of the litigation of major sites. This is coupled with further work of trade bodies like AIM and AFEM.”
‘Education is key’
There was a general consensus amongst those interviewed for this feature that the education of consumers is an important step towards addressing and reducing online piracy. The need for greater collaboration is another important issue that needs to be realised by the wider industry.
“We need to nurture a better understanding of the rights which underpin our creative community and the rationale for the existence of the copyright framework,” explains Bourn. “We also need [consumers] to understand the sorts of criminals and operations they are often helping to fund by supporting illegal services.
“If we can teach consumers to hold a greater level of respect for the music they enjoy, then in combination with the other approaches to tackling piracy, we hope to see users bring a greater level of responsibility to their online experiences.”
PRS for Music has proposed a solution called Traffic Lights, which addresses any uncertainty of the legality of online content by displaying a green tick or a red cross via a web browser plug-in. It would apply to all sites, whether hosted in the UK or elsewhere, and to all types of content.
“It is not always obvious whether a music service is providing material illegally or legally,” explains Bourn. “There have been a number of surveys and other pieces of research pointing to this and to the fact that consumers are longing for clearer information about where to obtain content legally.”
Traffic Lights is supported by Creative Content UK, a cross industry initiative set to be launched later this year. It’s backed by the likes of BPI, as well as major ISPs and Government and will comprise two main components. The first is a major multi-media awareness campaign, led by content creators and part-funded by Government. The second, a subscriber alerts programme co-managed and co-funded by ISPs and content creators, is likely to begin in early 2016. Participating ISPs will advise subscribers when their accounts are believed to have been used for copyright infringement, offering advice on where to find legitimate sources of entertainment content.
“A greater level of co-ordination is now happening within the industry, with Creative Content UK being an important step,” says Bourn. “We need to see this partnership approach continue between all parties across the value chain, supported by Government. We also need to see it widen out to include more of the online intermediaries who can make a difference, but who choose to ignore it.”
Bain agrees that a collaborative approach is the best way for the industry to succeed in tackling online piracy. “We need to keep working together through campaigns such as Creative Content and through cross industry organisations such as UK Music in order to show a unified position to Government and also to educate the public about the human impact online theft has.
“The writers need to be given a higher profile in order to tell their story on a massive scale and then perhaps we can start to win hearts and minds of the general public and gain commitment from the policy makers, both here and in Brussels, to implement beneficial changes to legislation too.”
Bain says that BASCA has been developing a scheme with PRS for Music over the last 15 months called Creator Voice. “[The scheme] ensures that our members are able to speak directly to high level policy makers, such as consecutive Culture Ministers, Lords, MPs and EU commissioners so that these influential people understand the human face and the personal impact of trying to survive in an environment where there is so little protection of their property.
“The past few years have seen us start to work with the organisations set up to tackle this problem. We connected with Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) as soon as it formed in the autumn of 2013, supporting their work. We also have a very close connection to the PRS Anti-Piracy Unit and fully support their activities and pass on details of sites infringing our members works.”
‘Piracy can’t be oversimplified’
Chatterley says that in addition to finding ways to educate and inform consumers, the wider industry should be trying to reconnect the audiences lost to piracy back to the rights holders. “Takedown enforcement is a very important component to a robust anti-piracy strategy but it’s not the complete solution. Anti-Piracy outfits and industry bodies generally have got it wrong and missed the point for the past decade.
“The person who goes to a P2P, torrent or cyberlocker site to download an album are not really the enemy. They are amongst your most fervent fans. They want your releases early, they are amongst your most targeted audience and they often want to spread the word about the artists they love.
“A wide section of the audience under 25 have only ever known instant access via piracy platforms. They are used to it as a speedy way to get what they want, so let’s make it easier for them to get what they want in a legal way. Spotify and other legal streaming sites are brilliant and absolutely crucial to the industry. It is the only way forward and the freemium model is important, as it leads to paid subscription. Illegal downloading has historically been free, quicker and often easier [than legal channels], but this is no longer the case now that we have fantastic legal streaming channels.”
Muso has developed a new product called Retune, which aims to re-connect with lost audiences. “It works in tandem with our core takedown enforcement system to ensure that all illegal copies of a release are removed,” says Chatterley. “We optimise search results to ensure that legal channels are the first appearing links in Google and other search engines. Then we create a new file that is blasted out to forums, blogs, listings and pirate sites across the internet.
“In some ways Retune takes the issue of piracy away from the legal department and into the hands of the marketing department and allows them to be creative. We are very excited about the impact it is going to have on the music and all media industries.”
When asked what challenges the industry needs to overcome in order to succeed in its efforts, Bourn says it needs to ensure that the problem isn’t oversimplified. “Music piracy takes many different guises, from the inadvertent downloader who mistakenly happens across an illegal service, through to the egregious operator of a significant commercial criminal business, and many shades in between,” he says.
“The different levels of wrongdoing require different measures and treatment, and what is appropriate for one will often not be appropriate for another. One challenge we need to be mindful of is the ever-changing and developing technology. We must be ready to offer licensing solutions to those service providers who want to operate legitimately, and know how to tackle those who don’t.”