Posted on 01/19/2003 7:18:43 PM PST by Leroy S. Mort
CANNES, France (Reuters) - A top music executive said on Saturday that telecommunications companies and Internet service providers (ISPs) will be asked to pay up for giving their customers access to free song-swapping sites.
The music industry is in a tailspin with global sales of CDs expected to fall six percent in 2003, its fourth consecutive annual decline. A major culprit, industry watchers say, is online piracy.
Now, the industry wants to hit the problem at its source -- Internet service providers.
"We will hold ISPs more accountable," said Hillary Rosen, chairman and CEO the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), in her keynote speech at the Midem music conference on the French Riviera.
"Let's face it. They know there's a lot of demand for broadband simply because of the availability (of file-sharing)," Rosen said.
As broadband access in homes has increased across the Western world, so has the activity on file-sharing services.
IMPOSSIBLE TO ENFORCE
The RIAA is a powerful trade body that has taken a number of file-swapping services, including the now defunct Napster, to court in an effort to shut them down.
Rosen suggested one possible scenario for recouping lost sales from online piracy would be to impose a type of fee on ISPs that could be passed on to their customers who frequent these file-swapping services.
Mario Mariani, senior vice president of media and access at Tiscali, Europe's third largest ISP, dismissed the notion, calling it impossible to enforce.
"The peer-to-peer sites are impossible to fight. In any given network, peer-to-peer traffic is between 30 and 60 percent of total traffic. We technically cannot control such traffic," he said.
Rosen's other suggestions for fighting online piracy were more conciliatory.
She urged the major music labels, which include Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI, Universal Music and Bertelsmann's BMG, to ease licensing restrictions, develop digital copyright protections for music, and invest more in promoting subscription download services.
Pressplay and MusicNet, the online services backed by the majors, plus independent legitimate services such as Britain's Wippit.com, sounded somewhat optimistic about their longterm chances to derail free services such as Kazaa and Morpheus.
But they also acknowledged they cannot compete with the "free" players until the labels clear up the licensing morass that keeps new songs from being distributed online for a fee.
LEGAL STEP
Officials from Pressplay and MusicNet, which are in their second year in operation, declined to disclose how many customers they have.
"We haven't really started yet," said Alan McGlade, CEO of MusicNet, when asked about his subscriber base.
Michael Bebel, CEO of Pressplay, said his customers tally is in the tens of thousands. He added that the firm, backed by Universal and Sony, could expand into Canada in the first half of the year, its second market after the U.S. He didn't have a timeframe for Europe.
Meanwhile, Kazaa and Morpheus claim tens of millions of registered users who download a wide variety of tracks for free.
Rosen hailed a recent U.S. court decision which ruled that Kazaa, operated by Australian-based technology firm Sharman Networks, could be tried in America, as an important legal step to halting the activities of file-sharing services.
"It's clear to me these companies are profiting to the tune of millions and millions of dollars. They must be held accountable," Rosen said.
As you're probably aware, FR was sued and came to an agreement with two major publishers and agreed not to allow full reproduction of their work. Other copyright owners could do the same. The law and the courts worked properly in this example. Music copyright holders should also be allowed to enforce their copyrights.
As you're probably aware, FR was sued and came to an agreement with two major publishers and agreed not to allow full reproduction of their work. Other copyright owners could do the same.
Fair enough. So you would be supportive of an industry-wide attempt to limit all articles on FreeRepublic to excerpts? Meantime copyright violation is ok as long as no one sues? Or is it even a violation in that case?
I was implying no such thing, and I don't visit this forum frequently enough anymore to be familiar with your position on anything. I was merely asking the question. If you don't choose to answer it , that's certainly your right.
It may be against my personal interest (I enjoy the collection of articles here) if that were the case, but I don't think it would be inappropriate. Copyright owners have a legitimate interest in protecting their work.
Meantime copyright violation is ok as long as no one sues? Or is it even a violation in that case?
If I murder someone but don't get caught, is it any less a crime?
Are you asking serious questions or just being contentious?
Because it's against the law! Is that so difficult to understand???
If you do not own the copyright (i.e. "the right to copy"), you do not have the right to copy. It's a federal law. Simple as that! Do you still need to ask "why can't I?"
For your convenience, the relevant parts of the above link state:
the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:You are not that "owner of copyright", so you are barred from doing either of these. Pretty cut and dried.(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
It may be against my personal interest (I enjoy the collection of articles here) if that were the case, but I don't think it would be inappropriate. Copyright owners have a legitimate interest in protecting their work.
Would you consider as thieves those who upload and/or read full articles that, by copyright law should be excerpted? Or is there a question of degree when compared to the theft of music?
Meantime copyright violation is ok as long as no one sues? Or is it even a violation in that case?
If I murder someone but don't get caught, is it any less a crime?
Perhaps that answers my first question?
Are you asking serious questions or just being contentious?
I'm asking serious, albeit perhaps uncomfortable, questions to try to understand how consistent you are in your views on copyright law.
I guess you think you're trapping me into an ethical contradiction, but until you come up with a more valid analogy, you're not.
I could argue that "pop music" back in the mists of time was MUCH more liberally disseminated than the printed word, but that, of course, predates copyrights.
Do you mean to say that you think the copyright laws regarding print are open to "interpretation of intent" whereas those regarding other media are not? Or merely that violation of the strict reading of copyright law regarding print is ok because "everyone does it"? It would seem to me if the producers of the written material in question had not cared about the "liberal dissemination" of their product they wouldn't have worded their copyright laws to limit it, particularly in the case of the internet. What am I missing here?
Hence the wide availability of literature loaned and distributed by libraries. Would you suggest that this is somehow a violation of copyright law?
Absolutely not. I am aware of no copyright law which prohibits a public library (or an individual for that matter) from loaning a book or periodical or even music CD. I fail to see the connection with the established copyright law which, in your own words, prohibits the dissemination of copies of full articles vs excerpts on the internet.
I guess you think you're trapping me into an ethical contradiction, but until you come up with a more valid analogy, you're not.
The issue is copyright law in both cases. The violation of one, you appear to condone, excuse, or ignore, while the other you do not. To me, that's a contradiction.
And I don't understand the attitude that artists should be GUARANTEED a profit for their work. I can assure you that an artist truly worth his salt will not go hungry in this day and age.
Are you seriously attempting to argue that there was only "garage band junk" available for public consumption until the benevolent "RCIA" came and along and opened the flood of beautiful music for all to enjoy? Sure seems like that's your argument.
My...however did we survive just twiddling our thumbs for entertainment in the olden days?
I direct my post #150 to you as well. Is it your contention that before the RIAA, no music existed that was worthy of appreciation?
That's overly simplistic, sort of like saying there's no difference between a Mercedes and a Yugo. Both are cars, aren't they?
I've tried explaining to you that copyright re: music and literature are, by law and by fact, not the same. Until you realize this, there's no point in arguing with you. We'll just agree to disagree.
I'm sorry I seem not to be getting my point through. Let me try to simplify it. Both issues involve the protection of income by the party holding the copyright, and an effort by others to deny or bypass that income through a violation of the copyright.
To use your analogy, lets compare the theft of a Mercedes and that of a Yugo. Both are grand theft auto, aren't they?
Now if your point is that, compared to Beavis here downloading Metallica albums for his personal use, your indiscretion is being "less of a thief", you might have an argument, though I dont think it would work in a court of law for the Yugo thief (he might however succeed with an insanity plea).
Simplify as you see fit, but that's not the problem. The problem is you're simply unwilling to acknowledge the point I've made several times now. A copyrighted news article and contemporary music copyrights are given different consideration under the law. Until you realize and/or acknowledge that, there's no point in discussing this with you anymore. Go take a class in copyright law if you're still confused.
Are you disagreeing with that, or merely ignoring it?
The ex-hippy, ponytailed entertainment lawyers who, if they were born women, would be screwing the musicians on the tour bus for free rather than screwing them for money from behind a desk with a contract.
The issue is downloading music vs. posting articles on FR. What makes one sinister and the other less so? In a word, motivation.
What is the motive of someone who downloads music from the internet? To circumvent buying that same song at retail and having to pay for it. The offender is essentially receiving stolen property and receives a monetary benefit from his action.
What is the motive of someone who posts an article to FR? To share contemporary news of a common interest with others of a like mind. No monetary benefit.
There is a difference. But instead of seeing and acknowledging that, you're only trying to make your point and completely ignoring the differences that I've pointed out.
Frankly, I'm tired of running in circles with you on this issue, so your future posts to me will be ignored. I've answered you already.
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