| SXSW: Music Execs Ponder ISP Licenses, Darknets, Kids Today |
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| Ablang (ron916@gmail.com) |
2009/03/23 08:27 |
SXSW: Music Execs Ponder ISP Licenses, Darknets, Kids Today
By Eliot Van Buskirk EmailMarch 21, 2009 | 4:55:26 PM
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/03/sxsw-music-exec.html
AUSTIN, Texas -- It has become abundantly clear to everyone in music
that the business is in drastic need of an overhaul, as consumer
habits have outpaced its ability to adapt. Jim Griffin, managing
director of OneHouseLLC, has been hired by Warner Music Group to help
license first universities and then ISPs, so that students and
subscribers can download whatever they want with impunity for a
monthly fee of $5 or so, with the proceeds split between
rightsholders.
Griffin and four other music luminaries debated the topic at a SXSW
panel called "Is Collective Licensing for P-2-P File Sharing a Future
Source of Income for the Music Industry?" on Saturday. In my decade or
so of digital music coverage, this was among the more interesting
panels I've attended.
SXSW_2009 There's a lot to like about this bold approach, called
Choruss: it lets people consume music in whatever way they see fit,
while making sure that long hours spent in a practice space (and on
social networks) eventually result in some form of payment for
artists. However, as panelist Dina LaPolt of the entertainment law
firm LaPolt Law PC said three or four times over the course of the
panel, "the devil is in the details."
This isn't just about music -- it's about the future of the internet,
and even democracy.
"We're the first people who have been hit with the problem of
anonymity depriving us of our ability to make a living," said Rick
Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America. "The way we
solve this is going to determine the future of democracy, believe it
or not. That's how big these issues are."
And they are slippery issues, to be sure. In order for ISP licensing
to work, some sort of system would have to exist for determining who
listens to what -- whether it's packet sniffing or client-side
software -- in order to divvy up the money properly. This loss of
anonymity could lead to Lawrence Lessig's vision of a dystopia in
which the internet, which began as an anarchic, open network, could
become the perfect tool of control.
In France, suspected copyright infringers receive three letters of
warning before their ISP boots permanently them from its network, as
part of a "three strikes, you're out" policy. LaPolt proposed an
interesting twist on this: three strikes and you're in.
"The first time [you're found infringing copyright online], you get a
letter, the second time you get a more aggressive letter, and the
third time, your [ISP] fees double," she said.
griffin_sxsw
Jim Griffin is trying to help labels, ISPs and publishers build the
music business of tomorrow.
Photo: Keith Axline/Wired.com
Griffin (pictured to the right) said the problem with that plan is
that encrypted "darknet" P2P traffic renders such a system
ineffective, because it prevents ISPs from monitoring what their
subscribers are doing. His idea, which he emphasized would not be a
one-size-fits-all solution but could be tailored to each university or
ISP, is to monitor "lightnet" traffic in order to compensate
songwriters, recording artists, publishers and labels.
Technology is not the only area of the music business that's in
drastic need of an overhaul. The music business also needs to
reevaluate its entire approach to marketing to younger music fans.
"The millennials -- these kids are amazing," said LaPolt. "I had a
conversation with a 21-year-old kid in Starbucks the other day, and he
was talking about going to school for organic farming. When I was 21
years old, I was talking about hookers and coke. These are a whole new
generation of people... whose issues are so much more deeper than the
things that you or I may have grown up with. We're trying to pimp our
bands or sell our CDs to them, and they want to know, 'What do you
believe in? Where did you come from?' They want to know your story --
'who do you like, what are your causes?' These are the people that
we're dealing with. As an industry, we're trying to sell these kids
things. They're too smart for that."
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