Who is wining the music download game?

It used to be in the news everyday: the music recording industry searching every where to find file infringers and bringing them to court. That was 2008. Then, it was the illegal music down-loaders that were targeted. Most of them caught were students who found the university’s servers to be convenient places to do peer to peer down loads. The university servers did offered the students an anonymous internet protocol (IP) address to illegally download music and movie files. It was a laborious method to track down people. But still, a few thousand down loaders were identified, including innocent housewives who don’t do any internet activities! There was a big hue and cry then when the music owners dragged the illegal file sharers to court. Incidentally, most of them were college students and the affected university authorities were caught unprepared. For the plaintiffs, it was an embarrassment as parents were yelling at their greed for money.

Now fast forward to 2010. There is a change in policy. Instead of tracking down the file sharers, the Record Industry of America is quietly making arrangements with university boards to install a music service program where for a small fee, students can legally download as much of the music as they like. They called it the ‘Choruss’ program. It is being tested in some universities and when it is accepted and proved workable, it would then be introduced on a wider scale. And why not? Instead of being termed illegal file down loaders, the students can now get as much music as they want for a small price, and without the worry of being labeled infringers. Surely the parents would have approved of it. Well, if you can’t beat them, join them! That is the way to make money, not using the big stick to drag people to court. In a similar fashion, the same scheme should be extended to the man in the street as well. Thanks to Apple’s pioneering of less than a dollar piece of legal music, the rest of us will hear less of people being dragged to court.