Well it was great fanfare that Apple announced that they have reached the 1 billion download mark for their music service. This is indeed a milestone, for Apple and a watershed moment for the music industry. With the advent of the Internet and the fact that technology has uncorked many things never possible like ripping CD’s and the such the music industry has been in a tizzy to stick the cork back in.
Well you may be asking yourself though just what the heck does Apple ITunes and their billionth download have to do with warez? Good question indeed! It is one though that I think that most network security practicioners could answer. For the remainder though it is one that does not make a whole lot of sense. Think of it this way. Most everyone working nowadays has direct Internet access via their workstation terminal at work. Quite a few of those people also use P2P schemes such as Grokster, EMule, and the such to download music, movies and who knows what else while at work.
While that may not seem all that big of a deal rest assured that it is. Would you want your company being server court papers courtesy of RIAA, DMCA or other such body? Odds are your bosses, owners would not be in the least bit impressed at being named in a multimillion dollar lawsuit for downloading copyrighted material. If your company is publicly traded odds are that the stock share price would take a hit. That definitely would not bode well for your job security as the network security analyst.
Whether or not we agree with recent court rulings we must realize that they are the law of the land. It is also incumbent upon us to enforce this within the network environment that we are paid to protect. Not only that but what about all the lost bandwidth due to P2P usage? Not to mention all of the malware outbreaks that come via some of this downloaded content?
I for one love ITunes and I download all my music from them. It is about time that some companies realize that charging fair value for a product will quickly get you a loyal clientele. Were this pricing model to be taken up by some of the software vendors they would likely see a large increase in sales vice fighting pirated copies of their goods. You can only gouge your customer base for so long before people start to look for alternatives, whether they be legal or otherwise.
So it was with a big smile on my face that I saw ITunes celebrate that landmark. It was also with a hearty guffaw that I read that Steve Jobs told the music industry executives that Apple’s download price for music was staying at .99 cents. The greed of some people knows no bounds. On that note please realize that these views expressed here by me, are solely my own and not those of the owners of this site. I would be most interested to hear of your views on what I have posted here. Feel free to post some of your thoughts.
Till next time!