Last week, The Guardian covered a story that we’ve been banging on about for a few years now – that Bluetooth file sharing of music and ringtones is taking off.
In fact, it’s reaching epidemic proportions and is one reason why the income yield per page for mobile content advertising is declining so rapidly. But it’s equally easy to argue that Bluetooth file sharing really isn’t an issue at all, as a Bluetooth file share episode is completely untraceable and untrackable.
I can tell you than I have plenty of anecdotal evidence from kids I talk to that if you ask how much they pay for ringtones, they look at you as if you’re barking mad. Who pays for ringtones these days, apart from rich kids or those that don’t know better?
The fact that these sharing episodes are untraceable raises a very interesting point for those in the music industry who want to try to stuff this particular cat back into the bag. Unlike mobile’s online cousin, no ISP or operator can be bullied or sued to reveal culprits of this “crime”. The fact is, no one knows.
The only way you might be able to find kids who have shared files in this way is to impound their mobile phone, physically examine the content and demand proof of purchase or right of ownership. This seems a little extreme, both logistically and legally. I’m not a lawyer, but I can’t see the courts allowing the music industry to impound someone’s phone on the mere suspicion (or less) that they might have done something like this. Plus it would surely be up to the prosecutor to prove that the defendant had downloaded something illegally, not that the defendant would have to prove their innocence.
This means that the music industry is going to be forced to confront its demons and work out how they can make money in an age when digital music must be free – no other outcome is possible here.
The first move will be to cling to the DRM life raft, in the hope that it’ll keep them afloat in the sea of piracy. Unfortunately, DRM is fatally flawed and badly listing already. There never has been an uncrackable DRM system and there never will be, as no matter how foolproof any system purports to be, some geek somewhere will unlock it for fun. And once there’s just one unlocked copy, that’ll turn into two and four and….you get the picture. Just one geek is all it takes, every time.
Despite this clear and present danger, it’s interesting to see that EMI, for one, have decided to dive straight into the Bluetooth channel, by teaming up with Nokia. The bFree service has launched in Finland, offering free (for the time being) downloads of digital content, such as ringtones, logos and wallpapers.
Is this a sign that the record industry is finally coming to terms with the new paradigms? Or another that they don’t know what the hell they’re doing?
What do you think?
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