Music Industry Defences!

DRM-
Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) is when you use technological restrictions that control what you can do with a DVD, CD, etc.What DRM does is it damages the disk;so that it prevents you from ripping it to your library and making it impossible to use on your electronic devices.

Creative Commons-
Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organisation based in California, devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. They has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses for free to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.

BPI Agreement-
This was when BPI made an agreement with the six major internet providers to caution illegal downloaders. This hoped to ward off illegal downloaders by threatening legal action.

The Digital Economy Bill-
This Bill allows the courts to demand that Internet providers cut off broadband service from alleged downloaders, but you had 3 strikes and then you’re out.This is controversial because you only have to be accused of illegal downloading and not be found guilty in a court of copyright infringement.

Prosecution of Pirate Bay (2009)-

The four founders of the illegal download site, PirateBay, were sentenced to a year in prison and fined £2.4 million pounds. They claimed, in defence, that they weren't guilty as they didn't host any of the music that was “traded” on their own computer but they only acted as a hub for people to find and download music from another persons computers. Since they were convicted, membership of "PB" has actually doubled.

New bundles developed to include music downloads in a subscription to include broadband, TV etc-
Recently, record companies have been talking to media providers about creating new “bundles” or collections of media services packaged together to be sold for a monthly subscription.

Legal free streaming sites like Spotify-
A recent development has been to allow people to legally stream songs for free if the streaming of the track was preceded by an advert. Some of the ad funding is given to the record company. This is used by sites like Spotify.

Early Release-
Record companies used to release new music on the radio up to 6 weeks before the release in a format people could buy. Many companies are now releasing it for purchase the same day they release it to be played on the radio. They hope this will stop people resorting to illegal downloads for early ownership, when they are actually willing to pay for it.