New concepts of intellectual property copyright: the survival of music in a free market

Abstract

The new forms of communication of musical works based on new information technologies have pushed operations based on tangible supports distributed by means of disks —on which an essential portion of musical industry revenue was based— into a corner. Currently, downloading music from the Internet goes completely unpunished and in just under 8 years, there has been a decline in jobs linked to this activity of approximately 70%; the same applies to jobs generated directly or indirectly. As a consequence of this situation, investment in new groups, young talent, and tackling new trends has significantly reduced. Of the 50 musical groups which sold the most musiclast year, there is only 1 completely new group. This situation affects the fundamental purpose with which the intellectual property of the creators was recognised duringthe French revolution: guaranteeing them a financial return on their work which would dignify their activity and lead to it being used for enrichment, freedom and cultural diversity. Today, this function is at stake in the digital setting and the situation needs to be rebalanced with the purpose of ensuring that a portion of the profits ofthose financial sectors which benefit from the situation (more internet traffic withmore expensive broad band internet than all over Europe, record sales of recording devices) goes to those who generate this revenue. It is obvious that the sales of 7million MP3 players in Spain and their costly price does not originate from the manufacturingprice: the value the consumer is willing to pay is based on the music thatcan be recorded on these MP3 players.