File Swappers to RIAA: Download This!

Washington Post ^ | July 6, 2003 | Leslie Walker

[John Jorsett]

The Recording Industry Association of America's announcement on June 25 that it will start tracking down and suing users of file-sharing programs has yet to spook people, say developers of these applications.

"Forget about it, dude -- even genocidal litigation can't stop file sharers," said Wayne Rosso, president of Grokster, one of several systems that allow users to upload and download files -- many of which are unauthorized MP3 copies of songs published by the RIAA's member companies. Rosso said file-trading activity among Grokster users has increased by 10 percent in the past few days. Morpheus, another file-trading program, has seen similar growth.

Maybe MP3 downloaders are interpreting the recording industry's threat -- an escalation from its earlier strategy of targeting file-sharing developers -- as a sort of "last call" announcement. Starting June 26, RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a news conference, the group would collect evidence against consumers illegally trading files of copyrighted music, with lawsuits to follow in a couple of months.

[visualops]

Many musicians *are* avoiding the RIAA. Unfortunately the RIAA still has a grip on the bulk of wide distribution, and of course radio. Look what's happened to MP3.com though if you want to see how the industry has tried to kill it with fees and royalties. I downloaded a ton of MP3s from bands I'd never heard of (and bought CDs of the ones I liked)before it started getting crappy. I also turned my stepson on to bands I discovered and he bought even more CDs. The RIAA continues to ignore the fact that word of mouth is and always has been the best advertising.
The whole article I quoted from specifically mentioned the fear that gripped the publishing industry, much as the RIAA are panicking, which turned out to be a baseless fear. Digital publishing actually is a whole new arena for business document handling, marketing, and a host of other uses.

[rwfromkansas]

A buck per song still equals the inflated price of a CD and unless the selection is actually good (my music is not very popular), I am not going to pay money for that.

Sorry, but 50 cents is the way to go, as you could get the equivalent of one CD for the good deal of five dollars, which is what a CD should cost.

As for your claim that if you go outside the top 40 you can find music for less than a buck a song, you are out of your mind. Almost everything I download is not popular music in the top 40 and not even on the major charts as it is religious music. I go into a store and find Cd prices at 15-17 dollars. I go to Wal-Mart and the prices are around 12-14. I go online and the prices are similar to Wal-Mart. Except for some old CD's and a few new ones every once in awhile as a special sale at one website that likes to have ridiculously low prices for selected CD's occassionally, I have NOT located anything I am interested in for below $11. And the times I find something I want on that site at the sale price is rare.

The thing is, CD prices do not change. You can find a CD from 10 years ago and it still will cost you 12 bucks, (with a few exceptions like the clearance sale that one site does I mentioned above).

I have been to Wal-Mart and seen releases of CD's from 5 years ago and the price has only dropped from the 14 bucks when it was knew to the bottom the store will go with almost any CD no matter how old, the 12 dollar range.

You are the one not facing reality about the cost of CD's.

Almost everything except CD's gets cheaper as they age.

[Sofa King]

>I just think its funny that fair use allowed for limited sharing until the digital age came about.

Legally speaking it didn't; but since it wasn't really a problem nobody cared. It was a non-issue. Now that it IS becoming a problem (since it is no longer limited), the RIAA is trying to stop it.

>Its seems ironic that for years they had the buyers by the short hairs

No they didn't; music isn't even close to being an essential. Everyone had the VERY practical choice of simply not buying CDs.

[Hajman]

What you are stealing, again, is the artists time and effort and the recording company's time, effort, and risk compensation.

That's the problem. In order to create the copy, there was no time nor effort into making the copy by the owners. The main problem resides in the fact that unlike the locksmith argument, the specific copy of the song created was completely unrelated to the owners. The owners do hold the IP on the song, yes. However, they don't own the copy (the MP3). If a person went out and created a Toyota, the materials would be their own. In fact, the copy would be their own (a truck). Toyota wouldn't have had anything to do with it. The only thing that wouldn't be their own, would be the fact that it's specifically a Toyota truck (intellectual property). In the case of the song, the material for the song, and the copy of the song, would be their own (owner has nothing to do with it). The song itself (the intellectual property, different from the actual MP3 and the data/song copy) would be their own, therefore creating a violation of copyright (they couldn't copy the song). Copying the song, however, doesn't remove any time or effort that the owner put into the actual song IP. The indentities between the actual IP (song), and the copy (MP3 song) are different. Because of this, they need to be handled seperately. The song copy was copied itself, therefore a copyright violation. The IP, medium nor copy was removed (explicitly or infered) from the owners, therefore no theft violation.

I think the main flaw in the argument here, is trying to equate the song IP, with the actual song copy (and possible the medium). They're not equal. The song copy is like a self-built Toyota. I didn't steal the new Toyota I built, and I didn't claim it (Toyota truck) as my own IP or sell it, but it was copied. No theft, but copyright infringment. Also, I use infringment, not because it sounds better, but because that's what it is (I don't leave out theft because it sounds worse, but because it doesn't apply).

-The Hajman-

[Principled]

I mean everything I say.

Towards producing and distributing music profitably, I assert that filesharing cannot be stopped with legislation because technology will outpace the law's ability to define and stop the swappers. For this reason, I assert that changing the business model is a way to reduce swapping and to profitably produce and distribute music.

Examples of models have been given on this thread. One even exists.

If you'd take a breath and wipe the sweat off your brow, you'd see we are saying almost the same thing.
Swapping is a problem. It needs to stop.

You get all freaky when someone explains why swapping has become so big...calling me a thief defender or something... because I try to explain the reasons for the industry shift.

You seem to want to call anyone and everyone a thief, liar, or defender of said. I seem to want to talk about the root causes of the problems and offer potential solutions. But we both seem to want the same thing- artists to be fairly compensated.

I don't know how you went off on me. It was kinda funny.

[rwfromkansas]

that 10% the RIAA actually gives to the artists just really is nice of them, isn't it?

[Hajman]

Thank you very much for that answer!

-The Hajman-

[Nick Danger]

"because they can't stop us" is a very poor defense for behavior.

There is a flip side to that, though. A person who has access to a technology that could lower his exposure to theft, and does not use it, at some point loses the right to spray the cost of his problem all over the rest of society.

If I'm a car dealer, and I leave my cars unlocked with the keys in them every night when I leave, I will have many cars stolen. Let us stipulate that every single person who took one is a car thief, and a dirty rat. However: for how long do I get to run the police and the courts around in circles, at taxpayer expense, dealing with all these car thieves, when I have a reasonable step I could take to greatly reduce the thefts? My insurance company will be asking me the same thing.

The RIAA is attempting to push the costs of its own refusal to adopt a widely-available, lower-cost distribution technology, onto the rest of us. They want the courts, the police, the ISPs, the public (if they ever get their "tax" on CD-burners) and anyone else they can think of, to absorb all kinds of costs to take care of this "theft" problem they have. They are like the car dealer above, who wants the police and the courts to continue responding to a problem he could ameliorate by taking a reasonable step. It is not fair for them to do this. What these guys want to do is holler "Thief! Thief!" and have the rest of us jump through hoops while they do nothing about an obviously superior, lower-cost distribution technology that they could have had running by now for less money than they've spent on lawyering and lobbying. They are stealing from us, burning up court time, making Verizon spend money on their problem, on and on, instead of doing what every other business has to do when a lower-cost production technology appears: adopt it or die. The fact that there are "thieves" in this picture is a distraction. The real problem here is a bunch of unreasonable business people who are fighting the tides, and now they want to pass the bill to us. I say 'no'.

[visualops]

I just had to comment on the silly statement about slaughtering trees. Trees for paper are grown in managed timberlands as an agricultural crop. Not using paper in order to save trees is like not eating salad in order to "save" lettuce. Trees are a renewable resource, and more trees are planted than are harvested. Additionally, more trees are destroyed by fire and insects than are harvested for paper. If you are curious about recycled paper, in addition to having the use of creating many products from tissue to cardboard, its use is mainly to save landfill space.

[discostu]

I'm not sure how many are avoiding the RIAA. I know some older artists have gotten sick of it (Jimmy Buffett is a good example), in the younger crowd non-RIAA companies seem to be functioning as kind of a minor league, bands are signing there and if they do well move up to RIAA. IMHO this is one of the major problems the RIAA companies need to solve, they're no longer taking risks on marginal artists like they used to. They used to make a lot of money signing bands like Yes and being suprised by their popularity, now a band like Yes could never get an RIAA contract, but they could get a non-RIAA contract so all that extra money from suprise successes are going to other companies (at which point the RIAA might be willing to sign them, like deciding to ride the horse after it's left the barn).

Of course all that being said we need to keep in mind that the RIAA still makes a large buttload of money every year. Even with sales off over 10% from peak they're still competing with movies and video games for the #1 entertainment earner spot. Don't be too hasty to play taps for the "old model", it might be taking on water but it's not playing Titanic... no matter what the RIAA says.

[Question_Assumptions]

Potential value was lost, yes, and copying of an IP has taken place, but nothing has actually been removed from the owner.

My point is that theft does not consist solely of depriving an owner of their property. Theft can consist of not compensating a laborer for their labor. If someone mows my law with the expectation that they will be paid when they are done, and I refuse to pay them, I've stolen their labor. If a band records an album with the expectation that they will be paid for their performance and I enjoy the album without compensating them, I've similarly stolen their labor. Yes, the fruits of a bands labor is not so obvious as a cut lawn since the sole fruit of a musical performance is the sound, but I think the theft is the same. They've done something. They've exerted effort. And they aren't getting compensated for it. Technically, that may not be theft but there is no economic difference between an audience crashing a concert and listening to it for free and an audience downloading an illegal MP3 and listening to it for free.

As for selling a CD, a CD or book is essentially a payment to play the song at a single location over and over again, as often as you want. The compensation for the CD is set accordingly, just as the cost of a concert ticket is set to make sure that the band will be compensated accordingly by each concert goer. You can frame this in the context of potential and future earnings if you want but the fundamental point remains that the band peforms with the expectation of future compensation and the people who enjoy that peformance do not compensate them and make it impossible for them to recover the compensation for their investment of time, effort, and money.

[Principled]

I don't know why the industry didn't change with technology. Are they run by unions?

[discostu]

Thanks for proving me exactly right. No matter what the price some people will claim it's too much. You know I picked up a Devo anthology for $24 at BestBuy last year, 50 songs plus really good liner notes. Yeah the RIAA is such a rip.

[Sloth]

Don't refer to copyright infringement as theft, it isn't. The material isn't being "stolen", it's being copied without recompense.

You are exactly 100% correct. Trying to create some mythical "intellectual property" cheapens TRUE property rights (and, IMHO, copyrights as well).

[Cultural Jihad]

Indeed it is technology itself help solve this. Not laws.

Again, that's solely up to the intellectual property owner to decide, not you and not I.

[discostu]

Like I said... whatever. Really you've changed positions so many times on this thread I can't keep track anymore. Maybe you think you've been consistent, but you haven't. Don't want people "going off on you"? Don't call them "clintonian" when you clearly don't understand what you're talking about.

[Principled]

that's solely up to the intellectual property owner to decide

I disagree. IMO tech will drive the equation.

[Cultural Jihad]

Again, if the owners don't want to deal with the technology, that is their right to do so. They can spend their time and resources suing the pirates all they want to.

[Principled]

Really you've changed positions so many times on this thread

Show me

Don't want people "going off on you"? Don't call them "clintonian" .

I can find ten posts in which you labeled others CLintonian.

Wake up.

[BOBWADE]

I just love being a $h t disturber! I really don't care one way or another but think there is some hypocracy with the industry and the courts. I think its definately dishonest to copy music files. On the other hand, radio and tv has offered free programming for years and it was legal to tape for personal use. Now I hear the RIAA wants to make it a crime to put your legally purchased music and movies on your computer because they fear it will lead to file sharing and infringement. So its okay to make tapes off of the radio and the tv for personal use but not digital copies for personal use on your own computer?