Here at GizmoCafe.com, we’ve often reported on the legal beagle actions of the Record Industry Association of America, or RIAA. Fellow blogger Wayde likens them to brain-eating zombies. However, CBS News recently featured a story starring its own decrepit, moaning opinion of the fight over music piracy. Leading the undead parade was CBS business correspondent Anthony Mason, who unwound a tidy little two minute time-filler about the impact of illegal downloads by American college students.
According to Mason, college students “used to be the music industry’s best customers; now they’re its biggest pirates.”
True, college-aged students – those with the least money to purchase $15 compact discs featuring two good songs – are most likely to download illegal music. However, they’re also the most likely to filter the little money they have back into the artists they love.
A 2005 study by the Entertainment Research Group revealed that 35% of music consumers downloaded their songs from completely legal web services like Yahoo, iTunes, or the re-vamped Napster. While 40% still pursued the illegal variety, the group performing the study expects – considering the momentum of pay sites – that the popularity of legal music downloads will shortly overcome.
In the period since 2005, iTunes popularity has only grown. So too have other services, which soak up the music fans lost at sea after the termination of illegal protocols like Napster and Kazaa. Studies have found that 63% of US kids who refuse to download illegal music cite computer virus threats as their main deterrent, evidence that America’s youth are more and more willing to pay for safe digital media.
So, what does Mason prove?
Not much. In fact, there’s little new evidence in his report, which could just as easily have been broadcast five or six years ago, during Metallica’s public rant against the original Napster.
If you want a fine example of CBS’ antiquated approach to music piracy, just consider the artists Mason cites as highly downloaded: Bruce Springsteen, Miles Davis, Buddy Holly, Avril Lavigne. Is this still about the impact of college students, or their parents and grade school siblings?
Clearly, music piracy has shifted from the protocols of yesterday to open source giants like Bit Torrent. However, considering the lifelong (albeit sometimes rocky) marriage between college-aged Americans and the music industry, Anthony Mason’s misguided story seems completely unwarranted.
