The report celebrates the music industry as the innovator, which not only gets the internet, but is essentially the “engine of the digital ecosystem”. Sadly, this self-boasting image seems to fall apart at the stitches. When IFPI wants to censor search engines, or make ISPs filter the net, it becomes obvious that they still haven’t learned anything from their own last 10 years. Users go to search engines to pose questions, get answers and do a selection according to their own needs. People pay for the internet connection to access people and content which they think is useful for them. I find irresistibly funny that IFPI thinks it knows better what people should be happy with as a search result. It is insulting though that IFPI thinks it knows better what people should be doing online than those, who pay for the access itself. But these fallacies are also warnings, that they couldn’t break those habits that nearly killed them in the last decade.
Because if they think those people who have the money that crave for, should change, instead of them providing a better service, then they are wrong. This is why facing the past’s bad decision would help a lot. If you cannot look into the mirror and say: these were the things we fucked up: we wanted to dictate the terms of access instead of listening to what our consumers wanted; we thought they were notorious pirates who could only be forced to pay by lawsuits, and we were wrong, because we now see that people are happy to pay even if they cannot be forced to do so. Absent of such self-reflection the industry will keep repeating the same mistakes. But it is not only them, who are losing by these mistakes. Artists and fans, the music and the culture also loses. Maybe it is time to be a tad more honest and self-reflective, dear IFPI. But at least try to keep your own story straight. Make sure you hire an editor who is able to spot when you contradict your own story. It also helps if you don’t contradict published research with references to unpublished data
Good luck next time.
"Subscription services are the fastest growth area in digital music, with subscriber numbers up 44 per cent in 2012 and revenues up 59 per cent in the first half of 2012." VS "Illegal free music remains an enormous obstacle to future growth of legitimate music markets." - I wonder what are the growth expectations of the industry if those enormous obstacles were removed? Exponential, they claim elsewhere. How realistic is that?
"Ifpi estimates that around one-third of internet users globally (32%) still regularly access unlicensed sites" VS "Pirate services are clunky and old-fashioned compared to the legal services available. they’re being usurped by mass consumer migration to smartphones and access to millions of tracks from legitimate subscription services. consumers can also tap into their social network and see what their friends and family are listening to. The pirate option just cannot offer that complete consumer experience." - They forgot to ask themselves: why people are still using those clunky and old-fashioned services even if so many excellent, legal and _free_ options exists. They claim better enforcement and not better legal services would solve the problem, despite the fact that they offer the proof to the contrary in their own report. Strange.
"The shift to the cloud could be as significant for the consumer as the shift from physical product to digital consumption. It provides a level of convenience around our content that is increasingly difficult for unlicensed services to replicate." VS "On January 12, 2000, MP3.com launched the "My.MP3.com" service which enabled users to securely register their personal CDs and then stream digital copies online from the My.MP3.com service. Since consumers could only listen online to music they already proved they owned the company saw this as a great opportunity for revenue by allowing fans to access their own music online. The record industry did not see it that way and sued MP3.com claiming that the service constituted unauthorized duplication and promoted copyright infringement." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3.com - I guess anyone can be wrong on anything, and it is easy to have a 20/20 hindsight, but I believe admitting past mistakes (which are now being corrected) would help recovery. And don’t boast about something that you sued out of existence a decade earlier.
"The launch of itunes showed that brazilians are prepared to pay for music. we thought consumers were so used to piracy that they would never buy music again. but this has been proved wrong. moreover, a new generation of consumers can now have their first music experiences in the legal environment." VS "Some key developing markets, however, are blighted by poor copyright conditions." - Now poor copyright conditions are important or not important? Copyright conditions remain poor even in countries with strict enforcement, and piracy levels are still relatively high. The boom is despite that. Maybe high piracy levels and the success of legal alternatives are less correlated than they think? See: http://publicknowledge.org/case-against-umg-emi which offers a convincing alternative explanation: " In the mid-1990s the industry was extremely, excessively profitable (see the bottom graph in Exhibit IV-3). The elimination of singles had pushed the revenue and margins per unit shipped to record levels. The new medium had created a bubble in demand in the form of library replacement.[7] Price fixing had stopped the decline in revenue per unit, even though cost savings continued, expanding margins. The tight oligopoly behaved the way rent collectors do. They failed to maintain quality and slashed the turnover of product. A substantial decline in revenue was inevitable as the process of library turnover was exhausted and demand was destroyed by pricing/product choices and quality decisions."
"The Netherlands is a top 10 recorded music market, but digital revenues are still underperforming their potential, representing an estimated 27 per cent of recording industry income in 2012." VS. "Boosted by subscription services, the dutch market is estimated to have had the biggest digital growth among the major European markets in 2012 (+66%)." - 66% growth and underperformance on the same page? What kind of expectations these people have?
"Actions such as expediting the legal process required to block access to mass copyright infringing websites, and changing the law to make it unlawful to download or stream from an illegal source, would significantly improve market conditions. [] website blocking has proved to be an effective way of curbing the use of individual illegal services." - this contradicts several studies on the topics, most notably: seclab.ccs.neu.edu/publications/ndss2013clickonomics.pdf, http://torrentfreak.com/censoring-the-pirate-bay-is-useless-research-shows-120413/
http://torrentfreak.com/censoring-the-pirate-bay-is-futile-isps-reveal-120711/
The Nielsen/ComScore study the are referencing is unavailable, so we cannot check its methodology, data and actual conclusions. What is the point of this?
"In several countries, isps have notification programmes aimed at migrating their customers to licensed services. the schemes involve isps notifying the account holder that their connection is being used illegally, with deterrent consequences such as fines to follow if warnings are repeatedly ignored.these programmes have been effective where they have been introduced." This IFPI claim contradicts what HADOPI is saying about their own effectiveness on the usage of illegal sites. See: Bonneau, V., & Fontaine, G. (2012). Etude du modèle économique de sites ou services de streaming et de téléchargement direct de contenus illicites. HADOPI, Paris. Who is right? At least HADOPI offers some insights into their methodology (which is far from being impeccable). The IFPI claim, in turn, is just hot air. They think they still can get away with such things?!
