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.
Wrong. They're not a beggar. You're violating their patent (copyright in the case of music). They have the right to stop you because you have no right to copy their product. It's the same as stealing. Is that so confusing?
Here's why ... We the People granted government certain defined and enumerated powers. WE did not give up our rights. The Ninth and Tenth amendments explicitly recognize this, but in fact, they are not necessary ... the clear "legislative history" of the federal charter -- the Constitution -- make that clear, even before the Bill of Rights.
Copyright and Patent are a power we granted government. Yes, I know, the term "right" in the word "copyright" is a point of some confusion, but in all honesty it would be "copygrant" rather than "copyright". We, the People, grant via our agent, the Federal Government, and establish by that grant, a temporary sole right of copying. I still am, WE still are, the owner and originator of that right to copy. We temporarily allow it to be leased, to be borrowed, to be given, to be granted, for value WE receive back.
That is I have the absolute right to copy anything. Temporarily I have agreed not to do so, for those things I have granted a grant known as a "copyright". I have done so, WE have done so -- inherited as an obligation from the generation of the Founding -- via agency, the Federal government acted as my agent.
However, not every act of an agent has to be honored -- if the agent has not acted in my interests -- OUR interests -- but has entered into some conspriracy to harm my interest with those that agent has contracted to on my behalf, to the harm of my behalf, why I do not have honor that contract, and should not to be an ethical person, to the extent I have the practical power to do so.
There are four branches of US Government: The Legislative, the Executive, the Judicial, and finally -- the People.
In a battle with a rogue agent, where that rogue agent includes the Courts and Police, well, practical people can not go head-to-head, yet remedies must be achieved, or corruption takes over everything.
The collective we have already rendered a decision in that matter and decided to provide a creator with the current copyright law. Your lengthy missive rationalizing theft notwithstanding, the law is the law.
You are not free to disregard the laws that the legislature has passed and the courts have upheld simply because you have a philosophical difference with it, not to mention an unjust monetary gain (yes, when you receive goods of value, and they're not freely given, you are receiving stolen property, a monetary gain).
As much as you'd like to assuage your guilt with sophistry and dubious logic, you're wrong. Make this argument of your in court and you'd get thrown out.
They already do. Tickets now routinely cost $65. They can do small indoor arenas for 15,000 fans and earn a million dollars. If they work just the weekends they could earn about 50 million dollars for the band.
They could add to this by doing commercials, like other entertainers and sports pros do. Tiger Woods may earn 10 million a year golfing 5 days per week (not just on weekends) and paying his own expenses. He then does endorsements and might earn 50 million per year.
He's the best golfer in the world, most bands can't claim that they are the best band in the world. What's fair is fair....and Tiger doesn't charge me to watch him play on TV, but I gladly pay $50 for a tourney ticket.
There is a difference between a right and an ability. You have the ability to copy anything but you do not have the right. Look it up, 17 U.S.C. - the Copyright law, says that for a period of the life of the author plus 50-95 years (depending on circumstance), the creator has the exclusive right to copy, not you.
You also have the ability to break into your neighbor's home and live as a squatter, but hopefully you're also agreed not to do so. Just because you've agreed not to do so doesn't mean you have any inherent right to do so if you so choose. You don't. It's against the law. It's not a matter of your choice. You violate the law and you'll pay the penalty.
There are four branches of US Government: The Legislative, the Executive, the Judicial, and finally -- the People.
That might come as a surprise to all those civics professors out there who for 214 years now have been teaching that our government has only three branches. You might want to start a campaign to re-educate them in civics as you see it. Good luck.
Laws have an absolute foundaion, a person can not ignore it, and take a shortcut that says "Whatever the Governement says, that is the full Law." That is a slovenly attitude.
Get a little historical perspective will you? The legislature denying you the legal right to download all the music you want for free hardly ranks up there with some of the egregious acts of King George preceeding the American Revolution.
You're becoming more and more laughable with each post.
Being able to enjoy the fruits of your labor, free from the plunder and pleas of those who would take it from you, seems to be a pretty absolute foundation to me.
I'm hardly one to agree with every whim of the government, but I happen to think copyright law is pretty solid and valid. The truly slovenly attitude is one that says "I should be able to have this becuase I want it" without regard to how you're infringing the rights of others.
I'm not real happy about the upcoming security measures that I've heard about (such as DRM), but I see them as the inevitable consequence of the widespread looting of the music industry through online copyright violation networks. I see them as an attempt to put bars on the windows and doors of a store which has been losing revenue to internet file 'sharing'.
Would I like to shop at a store with a bulletproof shield between me and the cashier?... or at a store which intrusively checks for shoplifters? No. But I don't blame the store for what's about to ensue... I blame the music 'sharing' networks and the people who are using them to violate copyright. They are responsible for the upcoming wave of inconvenience that we're all about to experience.
There are a lot of honest people with large music collections who only want to make backup copies, make best-hits CD's of already purchased works, and other fair-use activities... who will not be able to do so because of music 'sharing' networks. If not for the amorality of the copyright violators, I think DRM would be dead in the water.
But if you (or anyone) has an idea of how to stop internet copyright violators without inconveniencing everyone in the process, I'd love to hear it. But, IMO, there isn't a middle ground that will solve this problem.
A harsh measure, yet this produced with others compelling reasons for full rebellion -- still only a full rebellion by a minority of the public. See how difficult it is to raise public scorn and practical rebuke against tyranny?
Like the frog boiled in the pot, a greater danger of tyranny may exist from a series of small, less horrible, impositions. The abuse of this grant and the corruption of legislature that it demonstrtates falls through the safety net our current Judiciary uses. It falls to us, the public, to achieve remedies and stay the march of tyranny.
Yep.
Once one person purchases a single copy (whether it's through Sony Music or from the creators own home web site) of the item they should be able to distribute it world wide without compensation to the creator? You have no problem with this?
Nope.
That album grates on my nerves, not because of the music but because of the production. Whoever engineered/mastered that thing must have been tone deaf, and you can actually hear converter "overs" in the tracks. Incidentally, reduced production quality is another complaint from the circles that actually care about such things. I own recent commercial CDs where you can hear things like reverb processors clipping. WTF? I thought these people were paying good money for studio time. It really irritates me that they push stuff out the door with these very audible (and very preventable) production flaws.
There is actually an increasingly large pool of independent music with exceptionally good production values. What has happened is that extremely good production and engineering technology has become extremely cheap. For a few grand today you can have a recording and production facility that rivals the very best commercial facilities ten years ago in terms of capability and sound quality.
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