SAN DIEGO – Declaring that it's time to bury the forces that want to own music, John Perry Barlow ripped the music establishment for opposing digital technology, comparing its tactics against MP3 to the "war on drugs."
Talk about preaching to the choir.
Barlow's remarks came at the outset of the two-day MP3 Summit Tuesday, where his words could scarcely have failed to resonate.
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Barlow – a digital music supporter, songwriter, and chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation – confidently outlined his views of music as a free form of expression.
He lauded the coming of digital music as a boon to both artist and listener, but warned that both were up against a ruthless enemy resorting to every legal trick in the book to preserve its stranglehold on the music business. And he drew a parallel between the music establishment's current tactics and those employed by the United States in its war on drugs in the 1980s.
"Unfortunately, to survive, [the recording industry] is launching into a terrific battle on legal and technical fronts that resembles the war on drugs.
"[The industry is saying] 'We can solve this – it's simply a matter of enforcement and education.' Now where have we heard those words before?"
However, Barlow stopped short of flatly dismissing all the music establishment's concerns for self-preservation.
"This does not mean that I don't think that copyright has some value in cyberspace. But the revolution is about giving that control back to the people who create."
Still, Barlow decried the methods being employed. Indignantly, he explained that the industry plans to take its case to the elementary schools, where it will warn fifth-graders about the rights and wrongs of copying music.
"This is going to work about as well as similar previous efforts concerning pharmaceuticals," Barlow said.
He did not have kind words for Hilary Rosen, president of the RIAA. She was invited to the summit but unable to attend, ostensibly for reasons having to do with RIAA's answer to free MP3s: a digital music format being developed by the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI).
"A short conversation with Hilary Rosen makes it reasonably clear that she means business and expects to see some people in jail."
But change is undeniable, he said, thanks to a fundamental shift in the physics of music.
"The materiality of [music] containers [e.g., CDs and tapes] follow the same economic laws that govern toasters.... That is how it is being regulated because the market treats music as a thing, instead of what it is – which is a relationship between an audience and its creator.
"Now containers are going away."
Barlow and the EFF fear SDMI's mission, which he sees as nothing but a mechanism for the industry's unjust control of music – and something certain to die a "natural death."
Barlow says SDMI will make it difficult for consumers to enjoy music by limiting their access.
"We at the EFF think [limiting how consumers listen to music] would be a very bad thing," he said. "When you start doing that you're talking about limiting freedom of expression. We cannot allow this to happen – there is way too much riding on it."
To fight SDMI, the EFF has founded the Consortium for Audiovisual Free Expression, aimed at preserving freedom of expression from copyright protection, he said.
"I tell you: You cannot own free speech."
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