Copyright Law

Music Industry Angry Over Piracy from?1897?

By soulxtc

Looks like the music industry has been battling the problem for over a century now.

An article from the June 13th, 1897 edition of the NY Times gives a curious backstory to the problems currently facing the music industry. Some would argue that piracy is a contemporary problem whose only solution is increased legislation, but “Music Pirates in Canada” proves that simply meeting the demands of the customers is a better way to compete.

The article says the way it worked is that a local newspaper would publish a list of available music. Readers could then buy an album for 2 to 5 cents, instead of 20 to 40 cents, which the pirate then mails to the buyer with the newspaper getting half of the money for advertising. You could pick and choose albums while reading the morning paper without having to go to a record store.

Pretty ingenious right? It seems to almost be an early method of bypassing traditional distribution channels, a la brick and mortar stores, and instead create a sort of pseudo customer direct kind of business model.

It also seems to be an early harbinger for how the music industry must compete with piracy. The article blames “Canadian pirates” for a 50% drop in music sales, just as file-sharing has been blamed for a similar decline in current music sales. Rather than adapt its business model and offer music via mail at reduced rates it too chose to pursue those responsible, though with far less damaging consequences obviously.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

[Hat Tip]

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on May 01, 2009 (boomark / email).