It's not really piracy
Posted by Dave Winer, 9/27/03 at 7:39:41 PM.
One of a series of agenda-setting essays in anticipation of BloggerCon 2003.
As long as the music industry labels all use of music on the Internet as piracy, and as long as publications like the NY Times go along with this, the "problem" will never be solved.
Calling it piracy views it only from the perspective of an obsolete distribution system. They see their revenue declining because the service they provide isn't worth anything. The Internet provides efficiency in distribution that cuts out the middle man. Since the industry pays little or no money to the artist, the users can have the music, if you cut out the distributors, for $0. To blame that on people who use music is to miss the historic trend. Users are just behaving economically, not unethically; and it's even arguable that they are behaving legally.
Further, the music industry is applying a moral principle to music users that they don't hold themselves to, that musicians should be paid for their work. They need to clean their house first, and that's going to mean disclaiming ownership of some of their supposed property, and deciding what they want to be paid for, and then asking for (and maybe receiving) help from the online community, in much the same way the US presidential candidates are. And paying some portion of their past profits to musicians to make up for the horrible abuses that have come to light since the Internet music revolution started in Y2K.
Further, the music industry must give up trying to control the old music. We understand that there was no money in this anyway. Don't give up the copyrights, so if the music is used for commercial purposes, like in ad jingles or public radio pledge drives, you can charge your license fees. Then let the Internet have them to distribute and listen to for free, without fear of a lawsuit. Watch carefully to see what happens. And again, a reasonable percentage of the money must go to the artists.
Specifically exclude the new stuff, the stuff you're making money on, and provide proof that the artists are getting a share of the profits. Having done this, you may get some leaders on the Internet to agree to calling ripoffs of that stuff piracy.
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