February 11, 1999. Copyright 1999. Graphic News. All rights reserved.


MUSIC INDUSTRY DRAWS SWORDS WITH PIRATES
By Margot Nesdale

LONDON, February 11, Graphic News: WITH the keystrokes MP3, legions of pirates 
are ripping off CD-quality music on the Web in a huge free-for-all.
Now the record industry is trialling a counter-offensive in a bid to beat online bootleggers at their own game.
IBM and five leading record companies have just announced they are testing new technology in San Diego that allows consumers to download recordings quickly while protecting the copyrights of musicians.
Billed as Òpirate-proofÓ, the Electronic Music Management System (EMMS), enables customers to download a 60-minute album in less than 10 minutes using high speed cable TV modems.
While online shopping for an album is expected to cost no more than buying a CD from a record store, there is one drawback.
The only way for customers to transfer the music out of the computer is to buy a CD recording device, which costs between $150 and $400.
The move comes as leaders of the $40billion global industry are scrambling to address the proliferation of MP3 technology, a compression formula that allows computer users to download pirated, good quality songs from the net.
The technology has spawned a new breed of music fans Ð a mix of teenage computer nerds, university whiz kids and entrepreneurs Ð who use fly-by-night pirate sites on the Web to swap pilfered hits by top-selling artists like Celine Dion.
MP3Õs evangelists have promoted it as a way for musicians to sell directly to fans.
The record industryÕs fear of MP3 Ð the most commonly searched word on the net after ÒsexÓ Ð heightened last week when a dozen new, unreleased songs by rap star Nas were stolen and posted by a bootlegger for free downloading on the net.
Diamond MediaÕs Rio PMP300, which has just hit the high street in the UK, is a portable cigarette packet-size device which lets you download songs from MP3 sites for free. Major retailers like Dixons could be selling the Rio by mid-month for less than £200.
It operates on a computer chip that stores an hour of almost CD-quality music Ð and has the music industry more than a little concerned.
A quick glance at the 50 Best MP3 sites revealed the top ranking site, Super Fast MP3s, had been visited 23,616 times the previous day.
Research shows there are already up to 80,000 illegal music files with the most rapid growth in CD piracy in South East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and South America.
Type in MP3 at any search engine and it will come back with a zillion links to songs, but you may find anything that looks good wonÕt work. Lycos Inc, which introduced a search engine to access MP3 songs, is regularly blocked.
The record industry has an aggressive campaign to shut down sites but the number of permanent illegal sites is still on the climb.
The Canadian Recording Association is sending out 20 letters a week to pirate sites in Canada with threats of fines of up to $1 million and possible jail terms.
British Music Rights, which has launched a campaign for international copyright protection on the net, says the industry loses an estimated £40m a year through illegal copying of CDs and will soon be losing as much again through Internet piracy.
Steve Hall, managing director of Bell Voice in LondonÕs Soho, which records music for advertising and film soundtracks, said: ÒTrying to stop music piracy is like trying to stop the tide coming in... I think distribution on the net will take some of the Hollywood out of pop, which can only be good.Ó
He said that the only way for the recording industry to lure consumers back into shops was to provide value-addeds to CDs.
/ENDS.

Sources: Reuters, BBC Online Network, IBM