Article Summary: 'Catch Them If You Can' By Owen Gibson

This is an interesting old article from 2003. It shows how the music industry's state of mind was just 4 short years ago and shows how we've got to the situation we have nowadays.

The key points of this article (published Monday 2nd June 2003, The Guardian) are:

• A series of court cases, launches and announcements have raised awareness of the issue of illegal downloads and piracy and has force the topic back to the top of the agenda for label bosses and artists alike.
• The catalyst was the unexpected early success of Apple's iTunes, which in the US has got record labels all hot under the collar about the possibility that online music might be a viable revenue stream after all - this is a very interesting contrast to nowadays where record companies have practically admitted defeat and are changing their ways to meet changing audience practices. Nowadays it isn't even queried if online music is a source of viable revenue.
• The music business estimates that it lost £2.6bn worldwide to online and offline piracy last year (2002) and, to many, making a success of legal download services is their last chance to stem the tide - if we compare this to nowadays we can see that the promotion of legal downloads has saved the record industries for the short term, but it is still unclear whether they will be saved in the long term. We also know that legal downloads have now completely saved the record industry and artists are always saying 'you don't make as much money from records nowadays - it's all in the touring.' But how long will it be until touring becomes unprofitable due to Internet streaming of concerts taking off? Or will that not be successful due to the atmosphere not being able to be streamed?
• Most of the songs downloaded from iTunes in the States were as complete albums, soothing fears that online music would lead to the death of the album.
• Sony plans to drop the tarnished PressPlay brand and use it as the backbone for the relaunch of Napster, the one-time scourge of the record industry.
• When you get Sony, who have traditionally guarded their rights zealously, giving a third party the right to do anything with their catalogue, that's a significant change in attitude.
• There are signs, though, that the slumbering giants of the record industry are waking up to the potential of the web as a medium through which to sell music as well as promote it - this is a big contrast to nowadays where the Internet is probably the main medium to sell and promote music.
• EMI has announced that it will put 90% of its live catalogue on the web, but progress remains too slow for many, who point out that the company's live catalogue represents a tiny percentage of its output.
• EMI chairman Alain Levy admitted recently that the industry had a lot to do to catch up with the pirates.
• Ben Drury, the head of BT's Dotmusic on Demand download service, which offers music from all five major labels, believes that the success of Apple's service will act as a Trojan horse for other sites and that "the trend is that the illegal services are getting worse, more congested and slower while the legal services are getting better" - compared to nowadays, it doesn't seem to be the case because while legal downloads are improving, so are the illegal ones with websites such as Limewire.
• The major record companies have finally woken up to the fact that the online music genie is out of the bottle and the cork won't be forced back in by any amount of legal action. Comapred to today, this statement rings true but shows that it has taken them a long time to make any significant progress with legal action.