RIAA vs. Freenet: The Debate
Posted on July 14, 2003
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Declan ‘Politech‘ McCullagh moderates an email debate between Ian Clarke of Freenet fame and Matt Oppenheim of the RIAA in “Piracy and peer-to-peer” on c|net.
The gist of things: nothing new. It’s the “freedom vs. piracy” debate but this time both sides have much to chaw on from the RIAA’s recent victory against Verizon.
Clarke: The RIAA claims that P2P is to blame for their declining sales, yet they are in an industry that relies on discretionary spending in the middle of an economic slump. Of course, rather than blame the economy for declining sales, they blame P2P.
In the longer term, however, I think it is inevitable that communication technology will reduce and eventually eliminate the role of those that profit from their monopoly over the physical distribution of music CDs. That isn’t something anyone except the members of the RIAA should worry about–certainly not the artists, and certainly not the general public. Rather, this is a perfect example of capitalism in action. Just as the motor car replaced the horse and cart, so will the Internet replace most of the roles performed by today’s recording industry.
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Oppenheim: It is difficult to have a discussion about P2P and consider it a “general purpose” system. Nobody really contests the fact that these networks are overwhelmingly used for infringement. In Napster, we proved that over 87 percent of the music on the system was infringing. In Grokster, we showed that almost 90 percent of the files were infringing. (By the way, the term “file swapping” is inaccurate. Nobody is swapping, people are making copies.) So, is it moral to copy and distribute music on these networks? The answer is that it is no more moral than stealing anybody else’s property. Just as we would never agree that it is right to steal someone’s clothes or furniture, it is not right to steal music. The ability of musicians to sell the result of their work is critical if we as a society want to foster music.
(All quotes taken out of context).
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