Maybe the way to resolve the peer-to-peer file swapping war is going back to the future? The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a message for both the peer-to-peer file swap community and the music and video industries' bids to stop it: Adjust. The way to do it, according to the group's new white paper: Voluntary collective licensing, �la ASCAP and BMI for radio.
The EFF said the war between the music and film industry and the P2P community has put privacy at risk, crippled innovation, and ignored the point that music fans do better than record companies at making music available. And the government, the EFF added, should mostly butt the hell out of it.
"[F]ile sharing is here to stay," said the EFF in a new white paper called "Let The Music Play." "Killing Napster only spawned more decentralized networks. Most evidence suggests that file sharing is at least as popular today as it was before the lawsuits began."
The EFF, whose staff attorneys have represented litigants involved in P2P cases in recent months, said the war between the music and video industries and the P2P community is a losing one, especially for the music community.
"The record labels continue to face lackluster sales, while the tens of millions of American file sharers - American music fans - are made to feel like criminals," the white paper said. "Every day the collateral damage mounts - privacy at risk, innovation stymied, economic growth suppressed, and a few unlucky individuals singled out for legal action by the recording industry. And the litigation campaign against music fans has not put a penny into the pockets of artists.
"We need a better way forward," the paper continued. First, artists and copyright holders deserve to be fairly compensated. "[A]rtists and copyright holders deserve to be fairly compensated... [T]he fans do a better job making music available than the labels. Apple's iTunes Music Store brags about its inventory of over 500,000 songs. Sounds pretty good, until you realize that the fans have made millions of songs available on KaZaA. If the legal clouds were lifted, the peer-to-peer networks would quickly improve. Any solution should minimize government intervention in favor of market forces."
What the EFF means by "voluntary collective licensing," the white paper said, is the music business forming a collecting society which offers P2P swappers the chance to "get legit" in return for a "reasonable regular payment," like five dollars a month. "So long as they pay," the paper continued, "the fans are free to keep doing what they are going to do anyway - share the music they love using whatever software they like on whatever computer platform they prefer - without fear of lawsuits."
The monies collected through that plan, the paper continued, would be divided among all rights holders based on the work's popularity. "In exchange, file-sharing music fans will be free to download whatever they like, using whatever software works best for them. The more people share, the more money goes to rights-holders. The more competition in applications, the more rapid the innovation and improvement. The more freedom to fans to publish what they care about, the deeper the catalog."
And the EFF is convinced that precedent is on the side of this idea: precedent as in broadcast radio, and similar voluntary collecting societies like the American Society of Composers and Performers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI).
"Songwriters originally viewed radio exactly the way the music industry today views KaZaA users - as pirates," said the EFF white paper. "After trying to sue radio out of existence, the songwriters got together to form ASCAP [and later BMI and SESAC]. Radio stations interested in broadcasting music stepped up, paid a fee, and in return got to play whatever music they liked, using whatever equipment worked best. Today... ASCAP and BMI collect money and pay out millions annually to their artists... there's no question that [that] system... is preferable to one based on trying to sue radio out of existence, one broadcaster at a time."
The RIAA did not return a query for comment from AVNOnline.com before this story went to press. Neither did Adam Eisgrau, executive director of P2P United, a Washington-based lobby and activism group on behalf of the P2P community.
But California-based information technology analyst Jared Carleton told TechNewsWorld.com he thinks the RIAA would be anything but enthusiastic about the voluntary collective licensing idea for P2P. Carleton insisted there could only be a mandatory system in place. "If the EFF thinks that a voluntary system at this point will satisfy the RIAA and record labels it represents, then they have their heads buried in the sand - right up to their ankles," Carleton told the news site.
"Volunteering to pay a copyright holder is not an option," he continued. "Per international law, copyright holders are legally entitled to compensation, thus there must be a mandatory system put into place.... The RIAA has proven that their current plan of attack is working. Record label revenues are up. P2P users are afraid of breaking the law. In fact, the RIAA method of dealing with illegal file traders has been so effective that it is being copied in Canada now, and I would expect it to spread to other countries as well."
