Much can be said about the ever-changing business of music since the so-called “copyright wars” began, but one thing is certain: ordinary music users are much more copyright conscience than they’ve ever been. There are now entire colleges, such as Belmont University’s College of Entertainment and Music Business, dedicated to the education of music business and copyright law. Major record labels are partnering with music-streaming companies like Pandora and Spotify to perpetuate alternatives to illegal file sharing. Even a federal district judge in New York awarded DMX, a leading provider of commercial music services, the right to pay lower and variable performance licenses to BMI based on direct licensing arrangements with certain publishers.


I think everybody can remember the first time they heard about Napster. It was the shot heard round the world: “I can download music for free?” was everybody’s reaction, in so many words. Music users (or pirates, however you look at it) instantly envisioned a landscape of music outside the constraints of money where songs were ripe for the plucking. Those who work for the music industry saw the same vision, but adopted an entirely different attitude. After Napster was liquidized and subsequently bought out by Bertelsmann, the changes within the following decade proved to be among the most paramount in any industry.

Suddenly any music user with an Internet connection indirectly became a potential criminal by default; the leading copyright protectors morphed into copyright enforcers. The RIAA — an institution that helped popularize classic records by spawning systems that allowed artists to track sales — began incriminating thousands of individuals for millions of dollars in copyright damages.

On the flip side, copyright protectors are realizing the negative impact of their hostile means of enforcement. In recent interviews, both the President of the RIAA and a licensing executive for BMI have spoken out in hopes to reconcile the damaged image their respective companies have acquired.

Education is more important than persecution. Copyright is very serious and those who infringe and abuse it should pay the consequences, but if more steps are taken to teach music users about exclusive rights, then the problem of file sharing will alleviate out of mutual respect for the music community. I’ll leave you with a poignant marketing campaign ran by Pepsi that was not only among the first of its kind, but also completely described the state of the music industry at that time.