The American music industry last week turned its collective gaze on to a 12-year-old schoolgirl from Manhattan.
But it wasn't Brianna LaHara's precocious musical talents the record executives were interested in. She's not the next Britney. It was her newfound fame as one of the first targets in a crackdown on internet piracy. The bespectacled honors student, guilty of downloading songs by Madonna and Paula Abdul, looked an unlikely villain.
"I got really scared. My stomach is all turning," she plaintively told the New York Post. "Out of all people, why did they pick me?"
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has turned to desperate tactics for desperate times. The suit was among a first wave of 261 filed against ordinary people for allegedly making copyrighted material available for copying online.
The industry organization has offered an amnesty to anyone who comes forward and signs an affidavit swearing never to download copyrighted music again, in an attempt to soften the bludgeoning effects of the legal action. It has, however, promised that thousands more lawsuits will be filed.
In the past few years, the US recording industry has suffered an eye-popping collapse in sales. While revenues have held up in Britain, they have dropped precipitously in America where internet piracy is rampant. Some estimates suggest that 60 million Americans have downloaded songs illegally.
Music sales in the US have fallen by 30 percent in the past three years as file-sharing services such as Kazaa have flourished. In 2000, the 10 top-selling albums in the US sold a combined 60 million copies. In 2001 that dropped to 40 million and last year was 34 million. By May of this year, Kazaa had become the world's most in-demand software, with 2.3 billion downloads. It has been adding new users at a rate of 13 million a month.
"Nobody likes playing the heavy and having to resort to litigation," said Cary Sherman, the president of the RIAA. "But when your product is stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action."
There have been other signs in recent weeks of how fearful the music business has become. The North American division of Universal Music, the firm behind Eminem and Shania Twain, announced plans to slash the price of compact discs by up to almost one third in an attempt to jump-start sales. At the same time Universal said it intends to substantially increase its advertising.
Universal CDs will now retail in the US for as little as US$12.98 , underlining how relatively expensive they continue to be in Britain.
The other four majors have not yet followed Universal's example. But Universal is by far the biggest music group in the US with 29 percent of the market and rivals will be under pressure to do the same.
"We are in the middle of a terrible situation where our music is being stolen," said the Universal chief, Doug Morris. "We need to invigorate the market."
The music firms have begun licensing their material to the likes of Apple Computer and Microsoft, which have launched competing services allowing consumers to download songs onto a portable device for as little as US$0.99.
It is in this area that perhaps there is the most optimism. Apple's iTunes has been an unqualified success. Since its launch in the US in the spring, 10 million songs have been downloaded. Microsoft, though, stole a march on the company when it launched its pay-as-you-go service in Europe two weeks ago, allowing users to legally download any of 200,000 songs from 8,500 artists.
Sony said earlier this month that it was developing a similar offering that would launch early next year.
The music industry catastrophically failed to deal with the arrival of the Internet -- viewing it as a threat instead of recognizing it as an opportunity to build a potentially exciting new distribution method. For an industry that markets much of its product to young people, it became woefully out of touch with its audience. It could, however, have reached a turning point.
The day after the uproar over the RIAA suing Brianna LaHara, the case was settled when her mother agreed to pay US$2,000. Under federal law, the RIAA could have extracted up to US$150,000 a song. In a flash, the schoolgirl turned into a penitent example, used to strike fear into other Internet surfers.
She was quoted in the accompanying press release apologizing for what she had done and admitting that it was wrong.
"I love music and don't want to hurt the artists I love," she said.
What initially appeared to be a public relations disaster turned into a chillingly effective tactic. Newspapers, by identifying and humanizing the individuals, are playing into the music industry's hands. The media turned swiftly from outrage to practical guides for avoiding being sued: New Parent-to-Child Chat: Do you Download Music?, read a front page headline in the New York Times.
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) were born under the sign of Gemini. Geminis are known for their intelligence, creativity, adaptability and flexibility. It is unlikely, then, that the trade conflict between the US and China would escalate into a catastrophic collision. It is more probable that both sides would seek a way to de-escalate, paving the way for a Trump-Xi summit that allows the global economy some breathing room. Practically speaking, China and the US have vulnerabilities, and a prolonged trade war would be damaging for both. In the US, the electoral system means that public opinion
They did it again. For the whole world to see: an image of a Taiwan flag crushed by an industrial press, and the horrifying warning that “it’s closer than you think.” All with the seal of authenticity that only a reputable international media outlet can give. The Economist turned what looks like a pastiche of a poster for a grim horror movie into a truth everyone can digest, accept, and use to support exactly the opinion China wants you to have: It is over and done, Taiwan is doomed. Four years after inaccurately naming Taiwan the most dangerous place on
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
Wherever one looks, the United States is ceding ground to China. From foreign aid to foreign trade, and from reorganizations to organizational guidance, the Trump administration has embarked on a stunning effort to hobble itself in grappling with what his own secretary of state calls “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” The problems start at the Department of State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted that “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the world has returned to multipolarity, with “multi-great powers in different parts of the
RSS