Over the past six years, the record industry has successfully sued thousands of people in the United States for illegally downloading copyrighted songs. Just this summer, the only two file-sharing cases to go to trial ended in big wins for the industry.
Soon, though, the major labels are going to have a different copyright battle on their hands — one that will pit them not against those who want to listen to recordings, but those who created them in the first place. Call it the fight over “Funkytown.”
