"Pricing is never used as a justification for what is effectively theft," says Matt Phillips of the BPI. "And take a step back. There's a God-given idea that CDs are too expensive, but compared to what? When people will willingly go to Starbucks and pay US$4 for a coffee then say US$14 for a CD is too expensive, it doesn't make any kind of sense to me."
As for whether the industry exploits artists, there are as many views as there are artists' contracts. It is virtually impossible to pinpoint a meaningful "average royalty" that an artist gets from a CD. If we take the extremely rough figure of 10 percent, that doesn't compare badly to what novelists get -- but then, crucially, they usually get to keep their copyright.
The industry arguably stifles creativity in other ways, too, by mega-promoting a handful of mainstream artists at the expense of others -- although, as Phillips says, it provides "the lion's share" of investment in the music world as a whole.
Fourth, how can individual file-sharers protect themselves against lawsuits?
Most obviously by not downloading music files without permission from the copyright holder. The EFF also reluctantly recommends turning off any options that allow your computer to be used as a source, rather than just a destination, for shared files, since the industry seems to be targeting those who do both.
RSS