File-Sharing Good For Music Biz

The LSE has backed that up with a media policy brief urging the UK government to look beyond the reports from anti-file sharing lobbyists.

The LSE report concludes that the entertainment industry isn’t devastated by piracy, and that sharing culture has several benefits.

“Contrary to the industry claims, the music industry is not in terminal decline, but still holding ground and showing healthy profits,” said Bart Cammaerts, a senior lecturer at the LSE and one of the report’s authors.

“Revenues from digital sales, subscription services, streaming and live performances compensate for the decline in revenues from the sale of CDs or records.”

The report suggests all the entertainment are doing quite well, including digital gaming, music publishing and the film industry.

“Despite the Motion Picture Association of America’s claim that online piracy is devastating the movie industry, Hollywood achieved record-breaking global box office revenues of $35 billion in 2012, a 6 percent increase over 2011,” the report reads.

It also says the music industry is still doing relatively well. Revenue from concerts, publishing and digital sales has increased significantly since the early 2000s and, while recorded music revenues show a decline, there is little evidence that piracy is the lead cause. “The music industry may be stagnating, but the drastic decline in revenues warned of by the lobby associations of record labels is not in evidence,” it concludes.

It also says that within the creative industries there is a variety of views on the best way to benefit from online sharing practices, and how to innovate to generate revenue streams in ways that do not fit within the existing copyright enforcement regime. It claims that the punitive enforcement strategies such as the three strikes law in France are not as effective as the entertainment industries claim.

Cammaerts and his fellow researchers hope that the U.K. Government will review the Digital Economy Act in this light, and make sure that it will take into account the interests of both the public and copyright holders.