Rightscorp, the company that scans the interwebs for people purportedly infringing the rights of its clients, has recently signed up Sony Music as one of its clients.
Signing up Sony Music will mean that the catalog of content Rightscorp polices will expand greatly seeing as Sony is a large player in the music industry and holds many copyrights to older works.
This must be welcome news for Rightscorp which is currently embroiled in lawsuits and had a loss of $2.85 million on revenue of only about $900,000 in 2014.
For consumers of media products, this is probably unwelcome news. The catalog of titles Rightscorp polices has expanded and will most likely generate more demands for money. Even more consumers will be left wondering if they should pay Rightscorp the $20 per song it wants.
As an artists, I feel this benefits nobody in particular. Honestly I was hoping Rightscorp would be a blip on the screen and disappear into bankruptcy at some point so consumers and content makers could move on with their lives. Instead it seems Rightscorp might survive and will continue to make the relationship between consumers of art and makers of art even worse than before.
The fact of the matter is demanding damages from consumers of you artwork because you feel entitled to their money only destroys your relationship with them. You should not be demanding $20 a song because you feel wronged. You should be persuading people, engaging them, showing them WHY paying in the first place is best for everybody.