Christopher Sabec reads and contributes to The Trichordist blog. The Trichordist is a public blog for people who are interested in developing and maintaining a sustainable and ethical world wide web in order to protect Artist Rights in this digital era.
In 1999 at Northeastern University in Boston, Shawn Fanning developed software that would change the digital media industry forever. This software was the first of its kind. It was a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing program that allowed users to share mp3 with each other for no charge. The program was called Napster. The price of a $15 dollar CD fell to the price of $0 online. In 2003, Apple’s iTunes was unveiled, charging their patrons 99 cents for a song. This helped the digital music industry slightly; however, free was still better than 99 cents. From 1999 – 2009, the music industry was cut by more than half. It went from $14.6 billion in sales in 1999 to $6.3 billion in sales in 2009. Illegal downloads consisted of 90% of the music industry in 2009. This shifted the music industry from selling CDs at big music stores to only being sold at big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy. Musicians had to switch their focus to performances and merchandise for the majority of their income.
Musicians are still entitled to retribution according to the US Copyright Act, so entertainment attorneys like Christopher Sabec are around to fight for the copyright owners and collect what is owed to them from illegal downloaders.
The Trichordist gives musicians and people interested in the cause resources so they can know their rights and help spread the word to help these musicians gain retribution for their popular creations. They have resources for new artists who are coming up and do not know much about the business. The Trichordist provides aid with manager agreements, record producer agreements, license fee splits for film and TV, and an intricate diagram on how much money artists earn online. There are two articles on Record Companies and artist relations, as well as a current version of the US Copyright Act. There are also a couple of articles on how Internet Service Providers affect the music business.
There are multiple videos educating viewers on the effects on the music industry from Internet piracy. There are also copyright protection advocate speeches on the history, issues, and concerns revolving the digital media industry in these times of digital piracy and why it is morally wrong.
Christopher Sabec will blog on trending issues on The Trichordist blog, following the news and trends pertaining to copyright protection advocates in the world today.
Christopher Sabec and Rightscorp:
Christopher Sabec is the co-founder of Rightscorp, Inc.. Rightscorp is a leading provider of monetization services for artists and holders of copyrighted Intellectual Property. The company focuses on the infringement of digital content – music, movies, software, books and games – and ensures that the owners and creators of such content are rightfully paid for their intellectual property.
Currently, 22% of all internet traffic is used to distribute copyrighted content without permission or compensation to the creators, an estimated $2.3 billion opportunity that Rightscorp is looking to capitalize on. The company targets copyright infringers and offers a settlement option, which is a much more reasonable option when compared to the legal liability defined in the Digital Millennium Copyrights Act.
Rightscorp has seen extraordinary growth over the past 12 months, increasing its Internet Service Provider (ISP) participation over 466% during this time. ISP participation is an important factor because each ISP can represent thousands of potential infringements that Rightscorp has the potential to monetize. To date, Rightscorp represents approximately 15% of the space and has closed over 180,000 cases of copyright infringement.
The internet has been extremely beneficial to artists and creators of digital content, giving talented people the opportunity to be discovered and providing them with various revenue streams that did not exist 5 or 10 years ago. However, the internet has also allowed for the illegal distribution of copyrighted content which means that the creators are not always compensated for their intellectual property. Rightscorp is taking advantage of a enormous market which will undoubtedly continue to grow as more content continues to make its way onto the internet.
The company represents over 1.5 million copyrights and has partnered with movie studios, Academy Award-winning films, top TV shows, recording artists, authors and other creators of digital content. Rightscorp is leading the way – in a space that has seemed somewhat lawless up to this point – in the protection of creators of digital content from illegal activity.
Copyright: Christopher Sabec
