The Artful Jurist

Recorded music sales continue to nosedive, largely as a result of unauthorized digital music file sharing. People just don’t pay for what they can get for free from cyberfriends. And that has been causing the music industry fits. The majority of that file sharing is copyright infringement, plain and simple. But how do you prosecute millions of individuals who are doing it?

Well, maybe you don’t always prosecute. Sometimes you try other things to get people to do what’s legal. Apple, Inc., and some of the major record labels are supposedly working on something that’s been dubbed a “Cocktail,” which has been reported to be added-value digital albums that will be sold in the online iTunes Store. The Cocktail will possess a lot of extras that the music companies hope will lure people back to buying whole albums (rather than individual songs)—and, that is, actually buying them rather than the illegal alternative.