August 5, 2003
Do You Hear Music?... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes".
I truly wonder what the RIAA is thinking. If you're unfamiliar with these
particular initials, they stand for the Recording Industry Association of
America, which is the hugely powerful alliance of the major music companies.
They're the ones who were so unhappy with everyone getting their music off
the Internet for free, they put Napster out of business a few years back.
But if you thought the "free Internet music" dust-up was essentially over,
you are mistaken. Their strategy in the interim has been to challenge every
Napster-like wannabe in court, and I would guess the RIAA simply looked at
it as the "cost of doing business."
Unfortunately, they didn't foresee two essential events: First of all, the
sales of CD's has continued to fall - some 10% in last year, just like the
year before that, and the year before that. And there was that little
setback last April in a California courtroom.
--
A Los Angeles judge ruled that two of these file swapping websites were not
illegal, even if some individuals used them to swap files full of
copyrighted music. And what did that do? It put the kibosh on the grand plan
to sue every one of these tiny websites and put them out of business. Now,
they had to go after the people who actually did the deed.
The first thing to know about the technology of music sharing is that it is
not about downloading free music from some website which stores it. All
these file-sharing websites actually do is hook you up with other people who
have the music on their own pc's. You download a song from their computer,
while at the same time somebody else may be downloading one from yours. And
there's the hitch.
That action means you're a music distributor. To be precise, you are an
unlicensed, illegal, non-royalty-paying distributor of copyrighted music.
So what did the recording industry do? It has secured over 800 subpoenas to
identify these people, who are known only by their Internet Service Provider
account, and the ISP's are passing that message along with the subpoena's
demand to provide contact information. That's right. The recording industry
intends to file a lawsuit with your name on it. And they've got the money to
do it.
--
Many ISP's have decided to send out letters - snail mail fashion - to notify
the unlucky parties, and you can bet little Johnny's name is not the one on
the letter. It's Mom or Dad, who won't find it amusing to receive a subpoena
or to discover that the price tag for each specific violation may range from
$750 to $150,000.
Nevertheless, I have two messages for the recording industry. First of all,
what I think happened to your CD sales were CD burners. Why, the low-cost
laptop suggested by my son's school even has one built in. What I bet the
kids do is buy one CD and burn a bunch for their friends. And the Internet
doesn't even come into play. OK record industry, catch them if you can.
And my second message? You have no idea how much I want one of you to drag
yourself home after a hard day's work and find one of those subpoena
letters, triggered off by the hi-jinx of your very own child, the one who
goes to that incredibly expensive college you pay for halfway across the
country. Now that would be sweet justice.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
