Legal Foundations of The Indie Music Industry.
The casual use of internet spread like fire and by the mid-90s personal computers were becoming a household thing because of the internet. I have written about this in detail in my blog Transformation of the Indie Music Industry. At that time, introduction of a new format called the MP3, as a product of the European Union project related to MPEG-1 video, led to the possibility of compressing audio files and making them easily transferable through the internet and fit on personal computers. In 1995, the first MP3 player ‘Winplay3’ was introduced with the ability to decompress and playback digital MP3 files simultaneously and automatically. The WinAmp MP3 Player followed the WinPlay in 1997 and boasted improved functionality and an intuitive user interface.
Digital file playback was made uninterrupted and smooth due to advances in personal computer processors making them sharp and steady. Hard drives and other storage devices for personal computers became portable and expensive due to their capacity of holding large amounts of data. During the 1990s, along with the invention of hard drives, also relevant was the introduction of fast connecting external products such as USB and FireWire, that allowed hard drives to transfer files quickly. Later, it became the basis for portable MP3 players.
The rise of online peer-to-peer file-sharing services such as Limewire, Napster and Kazaa at the turn of the millennium, led to the prediction that like other entertainment sectors, the music industry was headed for an impending doom due to catastrophic losses in sales. As I have mentioned in my blog Indie Music Industry, these predictions seemed to become a reality to some degree for the first few years, when record sales fell drastically at least partially due to piracy. However, the impact of the internet has expanded well beyond illegal downloading, as technological change continues at a rate never seen before. It now includes fundamentally different ways of marketing, distributing and promoting music. Today it has become imperative for indie artists to have their own full-fledged website displaying their work, YouTube video links and links to other social media accounts and online libraries. The entry of broadband capacity into a period of extraordinary growth by the end of the 20th century, contributed to lower prices from Internet service providers and thus expanded the market for users of internet. The benefit of internet file sharing was perhaps the most important factor behind the popularity of internet in that era.
Important Legal Foundations
When video cassette recorders were introduced by Sony in 1975, followed by digital audio tape recorders in the 1980s, the impact was tumultuous for the music industry. It is important to get a sense of the legal backdrop that followed and became the centre of countless lawsuits, majorly on the part of record labels, that played a pivotal role in shaping the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Within a year of the introduction of VCR, a lawsuit from Universal Studios on Sony for indirectly contributing to copyright infringement through their new product had Sony defeated, with the court recommending damages, after an appeal. The reason behind this was, by law, contributory copyright infringement involves knowingly assisting piracy. Interestingly, in 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned this decision ruling in Sony’s favour, saying that selling of copying equipment could not constitute contributing to infringement since the majority of consumers use it for legitimate purposes, within the law. This lay the legal groundwork for the industry, to be followed in decades to come.
The robust and high quality recordings of DAT recorders served as the first serious piracy threat to the music industry. It made the replicates of digital music easy to be produced and sold. The next important case was on the digital audio tape (DAT) recorders created in collaboration between Sony and Phillips. In my next blog I will discuss the other developments in this area in detail. Please share your experiences and I will add them to my future posts.
If you need help in creating and maintaining a website, HyperEffects can help you connect with your target audience efficiently. HyperEffects is one stop for your website, marketing and cyber development requirements. It helps you to create a website to display your talent or sell your indie music or indie art.
