What do the record companies really think of file sharing?

I once had dinner with the CFO of Rounder Records, the world's largest independent record label. I asked him "What do you, from your business stand, think of the file sharing?". This was around the time of the well publicized RIAA lawsuits (one against the 13 year old girl - way to win a publicity war guys).

His response was an interesting perspective, given the huge surge in popularity of the file sharing programs "Ok, so a guy pushes some pot, a few joints here and there, and it's no problem...but when you have guys bringing in a truckload of coke with intent to distribute, then there is a problem."

His point was that to some extent the casual user of the peer to peer systems may not show impact to the record companies bottom line, but when the super-peers start giving 1000 songs or movies up for anyone to download, then the impact is felt and they have to move. There was no discussion about copyright and legal or not, or a slow death by 1000 paper cuts with small users here & there - strictly the bottom line approach to the low hanging fruit, or so that was my takeaway.


(by Jeff Stahler of the Cincinnati Post)

A Copyfighter's Musings noted that the First Annual P2P litigation summit is happenins this November at Northwestern Law School. Working in the legal intellectual property field (indirectly) I find it amusing it's taken them this long to get around to these types of summits. I also see a huge disconnect between the fast/nible technology movement and the slow moving legislation changes needed to stop the P2P copyright issues. It's almost like legislation needs to be put in place now that moves where technology is expected to be going in 5+ years.

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cmusings/newsItems/trackback/ping$1430

Thoughts?