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Home taping is killing music (again)
For years the RIAA has been saying peer-to-peer is destroying the music industry, but it looks like the suits are changing their tune: The RIAA is now saying CD burning, not filesharing, is the industry's biggest threat.... which is their way of preparing us for more copy-protected CDs and other digital rights management. As if we needed another reason not to buy major label releases.
Which reminds me: after months of letting the peer-to-peer "Debate of the Century" sit in my news reader, I finally listened to it yesterday and can now recommend it highly. This debate, held at Cornell in April 2005, pits four panelists on on the industry side -- Cary Sherman (RIAA), Fritz Attaway (MPAA), Avery Kotler (Napster II), and Alex French (NBC/Universal) -- against Siva Vaidhyanathan (Copyrights and Copywrongs) and Fred von Lohmann (EFF).
Mild-manner von Lohmann proves himself a badass and pretty much steals the show, making a sound case for a collective licensing plan that charges users a modest fee for the right to download with abandon. There are excellent, thought-provoking arguments throughout the debate, though, which you can listen to via streaming video (.ram). The visuals aren't necessary, of course; I just put it on and cleaned up the apartment.
Posted by carrie on 08/16/2005 | Permalink
Comments
I listened to this yesterday whil building some stuff. Pretty good. I didn't think it would hold my interest for the 3 whole hours of conversation, but sure enough it did. Von Lohmann was pretty amusing, but what I found more notable was how typical some of the industry positions were. The Napster guy seemed the most 'sane' of them all, but that guy from the MPAA (I think?) was stereotypically extreme and annoyingly unwavering from his position. Another funny thing was some of the audible disdain form the audience in reaction to some of the stricter positions. That passively resistant attitude towards some of Attaway's ideas are why they don't work and never really will. Lohmann's ideas, on the other hand, seem to take that public attitude into account and use it to his advantage - specifically to keep the cost down to $5-$10, don't treat people like criminals, and don't try to catch every. single. one.
Posted by: Steve Lambert | Aug 17, 2005 7:25:03 PM
The Napster guy may be sane but I thought he was a total tool
I couldn't agree more about the audience. My favorite point was when one of the industry guys tried to "get" Fred by calling his voluntary licensing idea a "big government" scheme. He was so proud of himself -- he clearly expected to blow a hole through Fred's plan -- but this classic bit of rhetoric came off so phony, you could FEEL the audience groan. (Particularly since this followed a discussion of the legislation industry has been pushing to limit copying technologies.) When Fred responded, "Oh, so you're going to stop lobbying?" the audience just exploded.
It's easy to get bummed out about all the legislative trends in intellectual property, but audiences like this one give me hope.
Posted by: carrie | Aug 18, 2005 10:55:10 AM
VERY interested in hearing this interview; though downloading it seems to be reserved for the university people... Any way for me to still grab it?
Posted by: baronvl | Aug 19, 2005 10:47:59 AM
yeah, you have to listen via streaming video. See the link in the post above. (or on the right side of the Debate page)
Posted by: carrie | Aug 19, 2005 11:21:57 AM
