The growth of the legitimate download platforms meant the music business at last had found a way to make, rather than lose, money through the internet. However, that's not to say illegal downloading ceased to be the bane of the music industry's life in 2004. Far from it. If anything more people than ever were illegally sharing music via P2P networks like Kazaa.
The record labels maintained their hard line stance against illegal downloading - with the Recording Industry Association of America dishing out hundreds of lawsuits against suspected file sharers every month, and their sister organisations across the world, including our very own BPI, confirming they, likewise, would start to sue people who they suspected of illegally sharing music online.
Whether the record labels' ongoing legal campaign to protect their copyright has achieved anything is debatable. Some research shows that use of P2P networks like Kazaa is down in the US while it is up in countries where the local record industry has not adopted hard-line policies towards downloading. However, some argue the growth of the legitimate download platforms, rather than the RIAA's legal campaign, explain any fall in P2P usage. Others suggest former Kazaa users are still illegally downloading music, they are just using the lesser known newer P2P networks that it's harder for the record labels to monitor.
Of course the RIAA might argue their legal onslaught would be more effective if it were not for the courts in the US and elsewhere, who generally maintained the view throughout 2004 that internet service providers did not have to reveal the identity of individual file sharers until specifically asked to do so by a judge.
The courts also proved unhelpful in the major labels' attempts to put the companies who make the P2P software out of business. Kazaa et al continued to make the 'Betamax plea' (a technology firm cannot be held responsible if consumers use their technology to conduct copyright violation) and the courts continued to accept it. The RIAA's attempts to have US law changed to stop these firms using that excuse failed when their over ambitious proposals were lobbied against by all the mainstream technology manufacturers and retailers who feared the new legislation would make them liable for copyright infringement too.
Perhaps the courts will be kinder to the music business in 2005. A new court case against Kazaa makers Sharman is currently ongoing in the Australian courts. Their jurisdiction over Sharman's global operations, most of which are based in Australia, will, if nothing else, shed some light on a somewhat mysterious company. Plus, as the year ended, the American movie industry, for whom the risks of illegal file sharing grew significantly with the rise of broadband this year, was ready to embark on a new legal fight against the Betamax plea which, if successful, would benefit the record companies.
All that said, the RIAA's monthly batch of lawsuits are now so run of the mill that the industry association certainly no longer commands the one tangible benefit the legal route used to deliver - capturing the news agenda.