It would appear that critics of the music industry’s approach and the music industry itself are in alignment. Someday this will be a case studied in business schools titled “the music industry’s circular firing squad”. It’s hard to imagine an approach that not only did little to address the underlying problem at hand, but at the same time alienated a vast cross section of consumers.
The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003. Critics say the legal offensive ultimately did little to stem the tide of illegally downloaded music. And it created a public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person and a 13-year-old girl.