BitTorrent Exec Challenges Music Industry To Find ‘Right Business Models’

BBitTorrent has advised the music industry to develop new business models after a new study revealed that 43 million albums and singles were torrented in the UK during the first half of 2012.

Matt Mason, executive director at BitTorrent, thinks that, although Musicmetric’s findings are “fascinating”, their value is in helping the music industry to adopt the right business models to sell their intellectual property:

“Musicmetric’s findings offer a fascinating insight into the realities of the market which are essential if we want to see the music industry get back to its peak. These figures show for the first time that blocking the Pirate Bay had zero effect on piracy. It’s short-sighted to think that we can simply tell people to stop and they will. But great data like this will help companies build better services and platforms that empower artists to distribute their work into the BitTorrent ecosystem in ways that make sense for them. Consumers have used the BitTorrent protocol for over decade because it’s the best way to move large files. That’s true for musicians too. The challenge is building the right business models on top of the technology, which is something we’re very committed to here.”

BitTorrent

Mason also argued that torrents have massive unrealised potential, and that BitTorrent is dedicated to adding data to their service with the permission of the creators:

“As a way of sharing large files torrents are massively valuable and we shouldn’t forget the vast amount of legal use we have them. In the last month alone, we’ve worked with the Internet Archive to add 1.5mm pieces of music, books and movies to the BitTorrent ecosystem with the permission and blessing of the creators. The BitTorrent protocol is simply the network through which data flows, not the content itself. But knowing what people are downloading and where is incredibly value to labels and artists.”

Musicmetric, which tracks online trends in music and makes this data available to those working in the music industry, will later this week publish findings showing that 78 per cent of the torrents were albums and 22 per cent singles.

By anonymously tracking the entire BitTorrent sphere, Musicmetric purports to offer the most extensive and accurate picture yet of the digital music universe.

According to the report, which assumes that each album is assumed to contain at least 10 songs, the total number of tunes downloaded exceeds 345 million for the first half of 2012 – a figure which is set to rock the music industry.

Nigel Davies, a partner at Davenport Lyons a leading business law firm based in the West End of London, said: “These figures bring real context to the downloading debate, although I don’t think people always fully appreciate what they’re doing or the damage it does to songwriters and artists – the very people music fans wouldn’t want to steal from.

“There are various measures copyright holders can implement to protect their rights but what’s necessary – particularly in an increasingly converging world – is a combination of effort using the legal system, education and communication. There’s a missing link between communicating what torrents do and what value they lose.

“These figures bring real context to the downloading debate, although I don’t think people always fully appreciate what they’re doing or the damage it does to songwriters and artists – the very people music fans wouldn’t want to steal from.”