Copyright Business

New technologies to improve peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies are appearing behind the scenes - and they offer a pointed reposte to the content industries about how to deal with P2P downloading. They demonstrate ways to solve the problem by technical means. And when you consider this carefully, it means you can demolish the IFPI / MPAA argument that the only way to reduce P2P traffic on the networks is through litigation and sanction - or that P2P traffic can be reduced at all.

P4P is a way for ISPs to tidy up the P2P traffic and reduce the amount of bandwidth it users - P4P is, if you like, a technically neater way to transmit P2P traffic, and will help reduce the network management overhead for ISPs. The core group of companies developing P4P* consists of a number of ISPs, mostly American, hand in glove with P2P companies like BitTorrent and Limewire, plus a few stalwart equipment manufacturers like Cisco. And - this is where it gets really interesting - on the list of observers is - well, you guessed didn't you? - the Motion Picture Association of America, NBC Universal (part-owned by Vivendi), Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting - all the content industry heavyweights.

The music industry's woes - tumbling CD sales and the competition from online - get short shrift from that august organ of the money men, the Financial Times . Prompted by the £4 billion sale of recording industry giant EMI to private equity company Terra Firma, it asked:

"Is a brash but brainy outsider what the industry needs at a moment of crisis or will such culture clashes make him the latest wealthy amateur to fail on its glittering stage?". The question refers to the financier Guy Hands, who heads up Terra Firma, and who is, according to the FT, creating a number of cultural changes within the company.

The article does nothing to offer to offer comfort to industry executives and in fact offers a rather glum outlook for the immediate future. It predicts that retail shelf space for CDs will dramatically reduce in 2008, and that some record labels will disappear as online music promotion grows.

In a related piece , the FT describes how EMI's new owners are asking for EMI executives to provide greater financial justification for new projects including the provision of business plans before signing new artists or undertaking promotional activity.

From a policy-making perspective, the two articles provide food for thought at a time when the music industry continues to lobby heavily for a clampdown on music downloading. The general suggestion is that the industry's problems are caused as much by internal, as external, factors - and that the solutions will also be found internally.