The Net's leading free-speech advocacy group has stepped into the digital music debate to attack a closed audio format being developed by the recording industry.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called on the recording industry on Monday to create a standardized digital music technology that is open to consumers, manufacturers, and artists.
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In a platform statement released by the foundation, the group called on the recording industry to embrace open formats that the group said may "encourage the full flowering of individual expression."
"It is really important that we encourage the growth and development of an open format -- it is critical to the health and the growth of digital audio," said EFF executive director Tara Lemmey.
Last week, Wired News reported that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was pressuring hardware and software manufacturers to build a "time bomb" into their products that would, at a given point, stop supporting the open MP3 format. The scheme is intended to build support for the Secure Digital Music Initiative, a closed and secure music format being shepherded by the association.
But that industry plan raised red flags at the EFF, which concerns itself with the social responsibilities of new technologies.
The EFF will host its first meeting of the Consortium for Audiovisual Free Expression, or CAFE, on 25 May in San Francisco. The group of musicians and technologists will convene to discuss the digital music issue and plot strategy.
The EFF contends that users should have the legal right to "format-shift" material: that is, to copy a CD to a cassette or an SDMI track into MP3. Although the RIAA's Secure Digital Music Initiative proposal has not yet been made public, the EFF is concerned that SDMI could undermine the market for MP3 and open formats.
Susan Lewis, a spokesperson for the RIAA, said that the initiative isn't as restrictive as some have suggested, and that the organization has already been in contact with the EFF.
"We've met with the EFF and discussed these issues, and have many areas of agreement," said Lewis. "But it's also true that -- as with writers, publishers, and software producers -- the recording industry has rights to its own creative content.
"To the extent that the EFF disagrees with those rights, they have a bigger issue with the laws of this society."
The EFF said in its policy statement that it has long maintained that "architecture is policy. Given the choice, consumers would choose to purchase music in open formats. We believe that artists who allowed their works to be distributed in open formats would gain competitive advantages over artists who locked up their work." The group cites several instances in the past where the RIAA has coordinated the passage of legislation to restrict the copying of music.
In 1992, the Audio Home Recording Act made it mandatory for digital audio recording devices to include a system that prohibits serial copying, and also requires manufacturers to pay royalties to the record industry from the sale of recording devices.
More recently, the EFF said that the RIAA "coordinated the passage of legislation in 1997 that puts greater civil liability on ISPs who do not implement restrictive technical standards to prevent the copying of digital audio through the Internet (if and when adopted by the music industry)."
Shari Steele, Director of Legal Services for the EFF, said that recent lawsuits against Diamond Multimedia for its Rio portable MP3 player and threats against MP3 search engine developers run afoul of the principles of free expression.
"We're against folks trying to put limits on the use of MP3 files. In the Diamond case, we are against the RIAA's ideas. We think the Rio should be available, and it's pretty clear that the real reason they are going after it is because the Rio can be used to play illegal, copyrighted works. There are plenty of legit MP3 files, and though there may be misuses, they shouldn't be squashing players in that format."
Lemmey said that the EFF has had one conversation with the RIAA, but that it has not yet been invited to participate in its SDMI initiative.
"It's hard to engage in more until we see the [SDMI] proposals. It's all so secretive. As we hear more, we will engage with them some more," she said. "Our point of view on standards issues is that we really like to be part of the process to raise the civil liberty issues while they [standards and architectures] are in design."
The EFF, founded in 1990, is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that works to protect civil liberties, including privacy and freedom of expression, as they relate to computers and the Internet.
