There's unrest in the music industry since last couple of years. Napster and its cousins have created agitation in their camp. The industry has fought back with measures ranging from suing creators and users of p2p services to educating users about the misuse and swamping these networks with fake copies of media. Artists like Metallica and Madonna have personally picked up the gauntlet and reached out to the users asking them to stop sharing files online.

But sometimes I wonder is the hubbub they are making really worth it? Do the Goliaths of the music industry really need to lose their sleep over these p2p Davids? Isn't there a better way of dealing with this?

Size of the music industry worldwide is estimated to be about 40 billion USD and its loss due to piracy overall is 4.5 billion. Though the exact amount of losses due to p2p file sharing are difficult to calculate, I'd think that its still less than the 2% of the total sales at about a 800 million.

Consider on the other hand the internet porn industry, one of the largest businesses online. Estimated at the size of about 3 billion, this industry, though small as compared to the music industry, is loosing a big chunk of its revenue due to these p2p networks. It's a fact that most of the files traded over p2p network are porn. But then why aren't they making any noise? Shouldn't they be blocking porn downloads or flooding the networks with bogus files? Is it because they are too small? Is it because they are into this "unethical" business and hence can't come out in public and denounce this? No. It's because they have an alternate way of doing business.

Internet porn is one of the few profitable businesses online. This industry supposedly has given rise to many internet advertising and user profiling techniques including pop-ups, site referrals, user tracking etc. And they are handling this issue in a different way - Porn Strategy: Share and Snare

Rather than preventing users from accessing porn through p2p networks, they are looking at it as a way to reach targeted audience. A potential buyer looking for a specific thing is a dream of any salesman and that�s what Kazaa and Gnutella are bringing to the doorsteps of these guys.

It beats me why the music industry can't think of the p2p users this way. Recently Apple was forced to remove p2p capabilities from iTunes because it did not please the big music labels. I feel rather than spending money in suing their own customers, the music industry should rethink its view point and spend that money in developing technology which will help users to preview, buy download and share music online. It will not only help boost sagging music sales but will also go long way in making online music experience enjoyable.