[Reader-list] Grokster vs MGM : Musicians for P2P

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

Dear All,

(apologies again, for cross posting to Reader List and Commons Law)

A follow up on the previous post on the Grokster case

More on the MGM vs. Grokster, this time from Chris Anderson, editor in 
chief of WIred Magazine, in piece that appeared in the Los Angeles 
Times, in which he argues that many musicians are actually in favour of 
P2P arrangments.

cheers

Shuddha

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War on piracy victimizes innocent no-name artists
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opand014198110apr01,0,5368122.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines

BY CHRIS ANDERSON
Chris Anderson is editor in chief of Wired. This is from the Los Angeles 
Times.

April 1, 2005

The Supreme Court received an avalanche of friend-of-the-court filings 
this week for its hearing of the Grokster case, pitting a peer-to-peer 
file-trading technology against MGM.

Yet, the outpouring of concern in the case only hints at the true number 
of interested parties. Two decades ago, when the famous Betamax case set 
a precedent that protected the VCR, it was consumers versus the studios 
and record labels.

But now there's an equally important third party: the creative amateurs 
- people like you and me who not only consume but also produce content. 
And they're on the side of Grokster and the extraordinary power of the 
new distribution networks.

As anyone who's played with the software now shipped with any new PC or 
Mac knows, the same tools that allow you easily to copy and share music 
and video also allow you to make your own. As a result, we're seeing the 
rise of a peer-production generation, such as teenagers using Apple's 
GarageBand to create or remix their own music, and snowboarders 
distributing highlight videos of their tricks to, yes, bloggers like me.

Once upon a time, the ability to manufacture and distribute media and 
entertainment was solely the domain of professionals. Only pros could 
harness presses, airwaves, trucks, warehouses; only pros could command 
shelf space in the media and entertainment markets.

Videotape and audiotape were the first cracks in this wall, giving 
consumers the power to do a weak form of manufacturing and distribution. 
But digital technology collapsed the wall. Using no more than my laptop 
and any one of a hundred cheap or free online services, I can be a 
recording studio, record label, music store and marketing machine.

The Amazons, eBays and iTunes of the world have broken through the 
distribution bottlenecks. Increasingly, their endless aisles of shelf 
space hold not just the manufactured hits of traditional media and 
entertainment powers, but also the remarkably diverse output of 
countless niche producers. Each may not sell a lot, but together they 
represent a cultural force that can rival the mass market.

And they are not just in it for the immediate sales. Britney Spears may 
consider file-trading a threat to her royalty stream, but other 
musicians would be delighted to become a peer-to-peer hit. Getting heard 
is the challenge for most bands. Once they have fans, there are lots of 
ways to make a living off them, from touring to T-shirts to CD sales.

Even legends such as Talking Heads co-founder David Byrne are on their 
side. As he told National Public Radio, "Most artists see nothing from 
record sales - it's not an evil conspiracy, it's just the way the 
accounting works. So, as far as the artist goes, who cares?"

What's at stake is the realm of ideas, sliced and diced a million ways. 
The peer-to-peer music sites are the closest current approximation to 
the celestial jukebox we all want. Kazaa, for instance, has 25 million 
unique tracks, dwarfing iTunes' measly 1 million. BitTorrent has more 
videos than Blockbuster. Many of them are pirated, to be sure, but a 
significant portion - videogame highlights, say - were never intended to 
be moneymaking. The problem is that we don't know how to stop the piracy 
without chilling the creativity.

The main flaw in the case against Grokster is that the action attempts 
to criminalize a technology rather than a specific use. It also fails to 
distinguish between commercial content and noncommercial content.

Restricting these powerful new distribution tools to fight piracy would 
hobble the new emerging creative class, too. The potential collateral 
damage to legitimate users is much greater than in the Betamax case.

The Supreme Court should recognize that there is a silent majority in 
this case, made up not of pirates or the pop stars but the millions of 
individual talents who risk getting caught in the crossfire.

-- 
Shuddhabrata Sengupta (Raqs Media Collective)
The Sarai Programme
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS)
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India
Phone : + 91 11 23960040
Fax :     + 91 11 23943450
E Mail : shuddha at sarai.net
http://www.sarai.net
http://www.raqsmediacollective.net