The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case today that will try to determine who the bad guys are in the Internet music showdown, but anyone hoping for a definitive answer from the justices should prepare for disappointment.
In today's case, MGM Studios and other big players in the entertainment industry will try to persuade the court that online file-sharing services should be held liable for distributing software on the Internet that most people use to steal copyrighted music, movies and even software. The companies that run these services -- Streamcast Networks Inc. and Grokster Ltd. -- will argue that their software has legal uses and is akin to a videocassette recorder. Consumer electronics companies, worried that an entertainment industry victory would retard the pace of innovation -- and subsequent cash flow -- are sort of siding with the file-sharing companies.
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Unfortunately for both sides in the case, and for us, the high court probably won't be this train's last whistle stop. If the justices come down firmly on one side, the losers are expected to take their case to Congress and the White House. Whoever loses that battle conceivably could take the case back to the courts for a fresh laundering. It sounds like a broken record.
Ordinary people, the people who don't know the ins and outs of the case beyond the top-of-the-hour headlines on their news radio station, can be forgiven for being baffled. It's a complicated topic and both sides produce their share of smoke that gets in our eyes. But here's the gist: If you blow away that smoke, you're left with the realization that few of the debate's participants stand on firm moral ground.
The file-sharing companies are the easiest to skewer. Their argument, modeled after the gun industry's "guns don't kill people, people kill people" mantra, is that they cannot be held responsible for all the things that people do with their software. It is true that there are theoretical legal uses to file-sharing software, and some even are happening in real life. But get real, guys. Spend any time around the wired segment of the human race and learn how they download their music. You don't have to wait long to find out that they didn't buy it all on iTunes.
Equally up for abuse are the downloaders. Take, for example, UC Berkeley freshman Hannah Ostrowski, who shared her downloading habits with the San Francisco Chronicle: "I use LimeWire," said Ostrowski, 19. "I know my nephew uses it, my brother uses it, and several of my friends use it. All the girls in my dorm download music." The Chronicle quoted more undergrads for its piece: "File sharing is 'an everyday part of life,' said Danny Kim, 20, a second-year student at Berkeley. 'Everybody's doing it now. It's just so routine.' Freshman Demian Choi said he's been downloading songs and burning CDs since the seventh grade. 'There's no way they can stop it,' Choi said. 'They're too late.'"
Make no mistake about it: The recording industry is right to sue these children and their parents. Disagree? Well, I guess the logical extension of the "downloading is my right" argument is that these college kids' dorm room doors should come without a lock so that the rest of us can help ourselves to their clothes and other personal items. It is not up to them to redefine "theft" as "sharing."
Just so we're dishing it out equitably, the collegians quoted by the Chronicle are emissaries of a larger truth -- the "established" recording industry, by and large, is a club of people who are talented at business. They have managed to overcharge music lovers in order to fatten their wallets and those of a small Britney Spears-ian "elite" of musicians -- small in comparison to the world of artists out there who don't necessarily fit the corporate tastemakers' ideas of what we should like today. The industry loves to proclaim itself as the friend and protector of all artists, especially the niche acts that appeal to relatively small audiences. But if they win this case, don't bet that the record companies will be booking more avant garde acts. You'll get more Christina Aguilera and like it!
Theirs is a cozy hangout dedicated to gouging consumers predicated on a system of selling music on CDs and other "hard" formats that is dying. There's no way around that. The entertainment mandarins are trying -- now -- to find a way to cope with the digital reality (re: iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.), which is admirable. But the industry's first reaction to any new technology that threatens their control of entertainment distribution -- from player-piano rolls to cassette and video tapes -- is to try to quash it.
The Supreme Court and Congress should not declare file-sharing software illegal because that could put the brakes on interesting products we haven't thought of yet. Instead, the recording industry should intensify its legal campaign. Sue the kids and the adults alike until they get the message that stealing is wrong. (It's funny that we should even need a remedial lesson.) Meanwhile, the specialists in tracking down the source of pirated music and movies will get justifiably rich fulfilling lucrative contracts from Hollywood and the record moguls.
