And so it came to pass. The BPI, is announcing today (free reg. reqd.) that it’s sueing “uploaders” of music. Now I still don’t really understand what they mean by “uploaders”. Do they mean “encoders” or “rippers” of the music? Because everyone who leaves a song in a shared directory surely becomes a lender as well as a borrower.
I’m sure that at some point, when sales start dipping enormously, and someone smart realises that there are far more attractions out there than just music to use up our leisure time and money, they might realise how big a mistake this move is.
And I look forward to the wave of, er, outrage, that will come from the likes of the Daily Mail when some middle class 12 year old in this country is prosecuted for thousands of pounds.
Indie labels who use filesharing to get artists out there who have no radio airplay (that would be most artists then); people who like to try before they buy; people who want to be able to listen to the music they’ve bought on their portable device without worry about stupid copy protection on the “CD”.
Record companies are pretty backward about all of this as I’ve previously said. I really don’t have any sympathy at all for the major record companies.