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Music Police on the Prowl

Commentary
By James R. Hood

June 26, 2003
Like fat Southern cops hiding behind billboards, the Music Police are setting out to entrap those scurrilous varmints who've been swapping songs on the Internet.

Those who want to listen to music should pay for it, is how the record labels see it. They paint a piteous picture of dedicated artists starving in their wretched garrets (Let's see, this would be Britney, Madonna and Eminen?) while smug, self-satisfied MP3 swine make off with the pearls.

Yep, the music industry is turning up the volume on its battle to lock tunes up tight. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents the major labels, says it will start filing civil lawsuits against individual computer users who share songs online.

Industry mouthpiece Cary Sherman says the Music Police will sniff out the identities of heavy users on KaZaA, Grokster and other peer-to-peer networks and file civil suits against them, seeking damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song the all-ears crowd has downloaded -- or "pirated," as the industry puts it.

Never mind that these probably are the record industry's best customers -- the very fans who hang on every byte and, perhaps, buy as much or more than they purloin. And never mind that many of them may be minors -- children, in other words.

What's behind all this? It's basically plummeting sales of CDs, down more than 25 percent over the last four years. Of course, it might be that fans are buying fewer CDs because they have less spending money due to the poor economy. Or it might be that so many recent issues fall into the poor to mediocre range.

It might be partly habit. It wasn't too long ago the music industry was in a snit about businesses putting background music on their telephone hold systems without paying licensing fees. And every nightclub owner recognizes the burly guys who come around to shake down local clubs that don't cough up big bucks to compensate the composers whose tunes local bands perform.

To Sherman's retainers, it all comes down to property rights. As the record companies see it, they own the songs the whole world sings and anybody who wants to listen has to pay, either by buying a CD or paying by-the-note to hear it online.

Copyright laws were set up to protect creative artists whose work would otherwise possibly bring them fame but not fortune. Of course, they also protect the moneymen who control the recording, movie and publishing business -- and who have been known to be fairly ham-fisted in their dealings with those very artists they now portray as victims.

Copyright laws allow for limited copying for personal use. The current argument comes down to whether sharing songs online goes beyond that. So far the courts have sided with the music industry, but some consumer lawyers say that if the big-money interests come down too hard on individual music swappers, the tide may turn against them. Time will tell whether music can be put in a bottle or whether it must be allowed to flow more freely.

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