Study: A third of indie labels have given up fighting copyright infringements

A new study conducted by the Future of Music Coalition (FMC) and the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) reveals that indie labels are struggling to cope in the battle against music piracy.

73 large and small US indie labels were surveyed in regard to their experiences with the notice and takedown system. A good portion of labels say they have inadequate resources to effectively combat unauthorised use of their sound recording, while citing the fact that infringing sites regularly ignore notices or other complaints.

The key findings of the survey, as per the report, indicate:

• 87% of the respondents knew of online infringements of their works.

• 65% of the respondents who took action in having the infringing works removed from an online source reported that either it took longer than 24 hours for the infringing work to be removed or that the infringing work was never removed.

• 68% of the respondents reported that an infringing copy of their music reappeared on the same service even after that music had previously been taken down — the so-called “whack-a-mole” problem.

• 65% of those that did not actively search for unauthorized use attributed the reason to not having enough resources to search for infringing activity. In addition, 30% of the respondents also stated that they did not continue searching for infringements because previous enforcement efforts had been unsuccessful.

These results highlight the limitations and obstacles of the DMCA takedown process. Interestingly, none of the surveyed labels selected the response “we are not bothered by unauthorised uses of our sound recordings”, lending to the fact that the issue of music piracy is viewed as a prominent issue regardless of their inactivity.

Once again, a reform to current US copyright policy is suggested in order to “align the interests of those engaged in cultural production and those that listen and engage with that music”, drawing particular attention to several legislative and non-legislative initiatives that have been proposed by the music industry community to help counteract the issue.