Those of you, who have been using BitTorrent sites might know that some major media companies have created “fake” torrent files of their own content in order to monitor illegal downloads. According to Digital Music News the infamous BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay “is now pursuing a criminal complaint against several major recording labels and studios” exactly for this kind of behaviour. Some of the mentioned companies were Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and EMI Music and they are accused of infrastructural sabotage, denial of service attacks, hacking and spamming.

It seems that finally the major media companies get to taste their own medicine. They have been trying to shut down The Pirate Bay and many other BitTorrent sites for a long time, but as they fail in doing so they turn to committing criminal acts themselves. Now, I am not saying that I approve music piracy, but as bad as it sounds I think that it has just become a “bad habit” among Internet users as it is the easiest way to get almost any music you want. I like to compare it to jaywalking. It is against the law, but almost everybody does it. Once in a while you get caught, but you rarely get any punishment for it.

When you bring the major media companies into this comparison it starts to get really interesting. Consider them as vandals, who trigger the street lights to show green even though they are red. Of course unaware people start crossing the road, but then accidents start to happen as cars crash with the people (consider the cars as law enforcement). Happy vandals chuckle as they watch their scheme working. Okay, maybe that isn’t the best comparison, but it brings out my main point. Record companies are killing their own customers with their current behaviour.

What major media companies have failed to realize is that BitTorrent sites and peer-to-peer networks are the best music distribution networks around. Maybe by adapting to the situation and trying to partner with them would have yielded better results and actually grow revenues.