1 Lone Star

There has been a lot of interesting stuff going on in the battle over digital file-sharing (Kazaa, Napster, etc.) and the attempt by the music and motion picture industry to shut down free sharing of published works.  The Gettysburg of the whole battle between the high tech world, with coding, programming, and the opening to content and information with the Internet that has brought so much promise, is apparently going to be the U.S. Supreme Court case of  MGM v. Grokster, et al., which was argued before the Court on March 29th, and will be likely decided by the end of June.

I have, frankly, been sitting in the layman's corner on this issue, though definitely not on the side of those old-economy-hard-core types on the right (where I normally am on most issues), who just simply repeat the mantra of, "File sharing is piracy, piracy is stealing."  "The copyright makes it their property.  They can charge what they want."  I have a great deal of trouble with those who think that ownership of the property gives me no voice in what a fair price would be for the work that the big entertainment corporations want to charge.  That was the attitude that the MGM side expressed, through their trial counsel, former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, in a Wall Street Journal article (archived--subscription of $6/mo. req'd) at the time.  Last time I checked my Adam Smith, I saw that the fair market price was a function of both supply and demand.  I concluded early on that charging almost $19 US dollars for a CD that costs 89 cents per unit to make is not simply obscene, it is theft.  I hated the change in the copyright laws from back in the 70s, and nothing in the law up to now has made me happier.

However, it looks like there may be a positive result in the Grokster  case, as is expressed in a string of very insightful articles from the Intellectual Property webblog from the University of California Boalt School of Law.  They also have a relationship with  the Electronic Frontier Foundation which is on the lead edge on not only fighting the attack on the innovation and information access that is the heart of the Technological Age, but is proposing some very interesting alternatives that, if employed by the entertainment industry, will make the ability to make money beyond all that has been previously known.  One of the neat quotes in this article by EFF that gives an alternative to the present system of CD and limited I-Tunes-style brand-name digital music networks and movie access systems are the following: 

"The current battles surrounding peer-to-peer file sharing are a losing proposition for everyone. The record labels continue to face lackluster sales, while the tens of millions of American file sharers—American music fans—are made to feel like criminals. Every day the collateral damage mounts—privacy at risk, innovation stymied, economic growth suppressed, and a few unlucky individuals singled out for legal action by the recording industry. And the litigation campaign against music fans has not put a penny into the pockets of artists.

We need a better way forward.

The Premises

First, artists and copyright holders deserve to be fairly compensated.

Second, file sharing is here to stay. Killing Napster only spawned more decentralized networks. Most evidence suggests that file sharing is at least as popular today as it was before the lawsuits began.

Third, the fans do a better job making music available than the labels. Apple's iTunes Music Store brags about its inventory of over 500,000 songs. Sounds pretty good, until you realize that the fans have made millions of songs available on KaZaA. If the legal clouds were lifted, the peer-to-peer networks would quickly improve.

Fourth, any solution should minimize government intervention in favor of market forces.

The Proposal: Voluntary Collective Licensing

EFF has spent the past year evaluating alternatives that get artists paid while making file sharing legal. One solution has emerged as the favorite: voluntary collective licensing.

The concept is simple: the music industry forms a collecting society, which then offers file-sharing music fans the opportunity to "get legit" in exchange for a reasonable regular payment, say $5 per month. So long as they pay, the fans are free to keep doing what they are going to do anyway—share the music they love using whatever software they like on whatever computer platform they prefer—without fear of lawsuits. The money collected gets divided among rights-holders based on the popularity of their music.

In exchange, file-sharing music fans will be free to download whatever they like, using whatever software works best for them. The more people share, the more money goes to rights-holders. The more competition in applications, the more rapid the innovation and improvement. The more freedom to fans to publish what they care about, the deeper the catalog.

The Precedent: Broadcast Radio

It has been done before.

Voluntarily creating collecting societies like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC was how songwriters brought broadcast radio in from the copyright cold in the first half of the twentieth century....Copywright lawyers call this voluntary collective licensing."

The fact is that this system has the promise to actually have much more money made for the music industry in profits than what it presently is able to make in gross sales!  It still amazes me on how, in areas of technology and science, entertainment, politics, economics, and spirituality, the theme is the same.  People will die and kill rather than change.  It's like what we evangelicals call "the seven last words of a dying church:  'We've never done it that way before.' "

Well, that's today.  I'll be back tomorrow, Lord willing.  It's likely to be about immigration law, but who knows?  I have tickets to an advance showing of Kingdom of Heaven tomorrow with Gail and I.  I'll need to tell you about it then.  Adios for now.  God bless.