TorrentFreak

An unprecedented new report has detailed how the destruction of Napster chilled a decade’s worth of innovation in the music industry. Through interviews with 31 CEOs, company founders, and VPs who operated in digital music during the period, we hear how Big Music collapsed startups, turned down ‘blank check’ deals, and personally threatened innovators with ruination for both them and their families.

It’s 2012 and “Piracy” is still a hot topic of conversation in the industry. People who torrent music or have a huge music library are accused of screwing over artists, stealing, and being entitled. Piracy is still cited as The Main Reason Why Artists Are Broke.

As the music labels of the RIAA prepare to launch their six-strikes initiative in the United States, elsewhere in the world their strategies are somewhat different. In Europe, labels including EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner are pumping money into an anti-piracy company who do everything from cyberlocker takedowns to the dirtiest of all anti-piracy tactics – extracting cash settlements from Internet users. According to an insider, the company employees dozens of students as pirate hunters.

Sites selling cheap MP3s have been around for many years and the music industry has long complained that they operate illegally. In Russia, where many originate, they see the legal angle somewhat differently, arguing that on home soil they are entirely legal. Whatever the truth, some of these sites appear to have interesting ‘wholesale’ suppliers.

A new academic paper by a researcher from the North Carolina State University has examined the link between BitTorrent downloads and music album sales. Contrary to what’s often claimed by the major record labels, the paper concludes that there is absolutely no evidence that unauthorized downloads negatively impact sales. Instead, the research finds that more piracy directly leads to more album sales.

American rock band Counting Crows have sold more than 20 million albums worldwide, but this success hasn’t caused them to overlook the changing landscape of the music business. Today the band releases four tracks from their new album for free on BitTorrent. Talking to TorrentFreak, Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz says BitTorrent is the new and improved radio.

A new report looking into online music consumption habits shows that since 2009 the number of people who pirate music has dropped by 25 percent in Sweden. The sharp decrease coincides with a massive interest for the music streaming service Spotify. One of the main reasons why people switch to legal services is the wider range of material they can find there.