The piracy crusade: how the music industry's war on sharing destroys markets and erodes civil liberties

摘要

In the The piracy crusade Aram Sinnreich aims to debunk the music industry's narrative that informs the laws and policies that regulate sharing of music over the internet. In this narrative -created by the music industry and accepted and reproduced as a frame of analysis by the news media, industry lobbyist, researchers, and policy-makers - online piracy is singled out as the cause of the dramatic drop in music sales and concomitant job losses since the end of the 1990s. Sinnreich's argues that this narrative and the domestic (US) laws and policies and international treaties derived from it, in conjunction with the music industry's litigation against consumers and innovative music startups, are tantamount to a crusade. The stakes are high. The collateral damage includes: civil liberties like free speech and privacy, the erosion of fair use, stifled innovation, and the general undermining of 'the marketplace and the strength of our democratic institutions' (2013, p. 6).