Film making

Americans are mad about baseball, so much so that the terminology used there has been extended to their legal system. The Three Strikes Law in the USA means any criminal who has been convicted three times or more receives a more serious punishment. This baseball phrase has been picked up by many other countries and in France it has been given a whole new application. There, the three strikes law is applied to electronic stealing (also known as electronic piracy) from the Internet in the form of illegal downloading and/or file-sharing those downloads with others. And anyone caught doing this three times or more will have their access to the Internet blocked.

But preventing people from gaining access to the Internet is a contentious issue. The EU (European Union) has officially stated that it is a fundamental human right to be able to use the Internet. But the ethical issues that have arisen from the Three Strikes Law are nothing in comparison to the complications of trying to enforce such a ruling. HADOPI, another name for the Three Strikes Law, which is short for the High Authority for Copyright Protection and Dissemination of Works on the Internet, have illustrated how easy it is to become an electronic pirate - even inadvertently. HADOPI designed a new logo to advertise their presence. Unfortunately they did not examine the source of the font they used and it turned out to be a font that France Telecom had the sole rights to. Hence those trying to enforce a law against piracy were guilty of that very crime. This "mistake" clearly demonstrated that the extent of the problem, a lesson they could have learned from the music industry

The avarice of the music industry has blinded it to the realities of a new age. DVDs are overpriced; they are just not value for money and hence people are not prepared to buy them. Why should they when almost everything is available for free. Steven Knopper's book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age" which came out in 2009, describes how the music industry refused to modernize. The web site, Napster, which was extremely successful in the years 1999-2001, exemplifies the outdated attitude of the music industry. Instead of bargaining with Napster, who had 26 million users, they sued them and managed to shut them down. This supposed success was short lived, since although they won that particular battle, their short sightedness meant they lost the war.

The introduction of the iPod in 2001, followed by MP3 players and the development of mobile phones to accommodate music files were the final nails in the coffin of the music industry. Dr. Michael Bull of Sussex University in Britain has done extensive research on the impact of the iPod. One of his discoveries is that most users spend their money on the actual equipment and download the music illegally. Knopper says he would like to see the music industry make downloading a better legal alternative so that the "free" route would become redundant and iTunes supports his claim. In a Newsweek interview in 2006, Steve Jobs explained that "if you want to stop piracy, the way to stop it is by competing with it, by offering a better product at a fair price. In essence, we [Apple, who owns iTunes] would make a deal with people. If they would pay a fair price, we would give them a better product and they would stop being pirates."

In 2000 the music industry sold $14 billion worth of goods. In 2008 the sales were $10 billion. While these sums are still large it is hardly surprising that the music industry is both unhappy and worried. Yet despite the decline of the industry, the singer and musicians are doing quite well. Many musicians are choosing to embrace the new reality and upload their music onto MySpace Music or other similar Internet sites. As a result their followers, who understand these people have to make a livelihood, are showing their appreciation of reasonably priced music and paying the $10 to download rather than going in for electronic piracy. The problem for the record companies is that they do not receive any of this money. In other words the musicians and their admirers have found a way of cutting out the middle men who in the past were the ones who reaped the vast profits.

If the music industry does not succeed in finding a place in the 21st century it will continue to decline and finally become obsolete. They need to find a relevant role in a new reality. The industry has undergone several significant musical changes in the past. They have moved from rock to pop to rap. But even while they danced to the new music genres, they have not moved from a business system that is outdated. And unless the industry finds a way to adjust to this new era they will find themselves discarded for other systems that have heard the sound of the new drums beating.