Downloading Free Music, Are We?

[Lightning Rod]

The technology of reproduction and distribution of copyrighted material has turned the music industry and the movie business on their ears. It used to be that movies made in Hollywood were on large film and the copies were almost completely in the control of the studios and their distributors. They didn't have a large bootlegging problem. Even if a bootlegger could get his hands on a copy of a film, the reproduction expenses were prohibitive.

Then came television. The film companies no longer had a monopoly on the display of their wares, but they worked with the networks to distribute and license their products. Ah, but then came the video-tape machine and things got totally out of hand. Anybody with two of these machines suddenly became an independent movie distributor. The film companies predicted rampant piracy and the demise of the industry. What we got instead was a revitalization of the industry and Blockbuster and a whole new market for legal video tapes. But still the film companies sued Sony for selling the Betamax because some of their customers were using the machines to make bootleg copies of Hollywood movies. The Supreme court ruled in 1984 that Sony could not be sued for copyright infringement if an owner of a machine that they sold is used to make illegal copies of a movie.

Hurray for the Supreme Court. They recognized that new technology might upset your apple cart if you are at the top of the fiduciary pyramid, but in the long run, that technology will create new economic benefits and opportunities.

Now comes digital technology. It is even easier and cheaper to reproduce and distribute copyrighted material. Total strangers on opposite sides of the world can exchange music and movies and other files with ease and for free. Peer to peer computer technology has put a serious crimp in the style of those that make their livings based on ownership of intellectual property. I'm talking about publishers and record makers and movie sellers and writers and actors and musicians and artists.

The controversy about sharing music files on the internet has been going on for years. And it pretty much breaks down along party lines. The artists and the companies that are reaping major bucks from selling physical copies of their recordings are the Republicans in the matter, and the unsigned young artists and the indie recording companies who have adopted the new technology and are distributing their products on the net are the Democrats.

Flashback two centuries to England, 1811, during the Industrial Revolution, when machines were taking over the work of human labor slaves. There arose a group of terrorists called the Luddites. They wanted to remain labor slaves, so they carried out an operation of insurgency. They broke into the factories and destroyed the machines that they figured were putting them out of a job. It became a capital crime in England to destroy a steam powered loom or a machine that knitted stockings. The crime was called 'machine breaking' . In 1813 seventeen men were executed for committing it, and Luddite has since become a term for those who oppose technological progress.

My point here is that it is nothing new for people with vested interests in a system or technology to resist changes that might deny them the advantages that they had enjoyed before. Detroit has long denied hybrid and alternative engines in favor of their already designed internal combustion engines, never mind that those engines are breaking the bank every time you drive past a gas pump and warming the globe to the point where giant hunks of Antarctica are falling off and any day now we could be wading around knee deep in sea water in New York and San Francisco. Detroit should be safe for awhile.

But you can't stop the progress of a better idea. Our transportation is not by horse and buggy anymore. Oh, it's still possible. The Amish do it. But a better idea came along. Cars. The same thing is happening in the world of information distribution. A better idea has come along. That idea is to use the internet to distribute intellectual material including sound recordings, movies and videos and software.

If you are Don Henley or Cheryl Crow and are making millions off your record sales, this is a disaster. People are getting your recordings free, ferchrissake! How does that help you pay for your haciendas and your helicopter rides? But if you are Marilyn Cobain, the unknown grunge rocker from Seattle, it's a great idea. It gives you a chance to expose the world to your miraculous talent, even if that talent is more for make-up than for music.

Now the Supreme Court is asked to rule again about technology outstripping convention, culture and economy. The recording and film industries are asking the Court to decide if the software companies that make the peer to peer programs are liable for the loss of royalties due to internet file sharing. If the Justices rule based on the Betamax case, they will have to protect the software companies, but this is a different Supreme Court than we had twenty years ago. And by the time the Court decides this case in June or July, Karl Rove or Michael Eisner might be Chief Justice. We'll just have to wait and see.

The Poet's Eye sees that if the power or energy companies could figure out a way to put a meter on the sunlight or the air you breathe, they would gladly charge you for it. And the last thing they want to see is an oil well or a windmill in everybody's backyard or rooftops shimmering with solar panels. Likewise, the record and movie companies don't want you sharing their products with internet friends around the world and leaving thier pocketbooks out of the loop. Luddites?

The machine yes, the machine,
never wastes anybody's time,
never watches the foreman,
never talks back.
--Carl Sandburg

[e_dog]

an able and insightful piece.

you said it right: the VCR decision ought to settle it, but that was then and this nower.