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Hilary Rosen Defeated at Oxford Union
yogi writes "Oxford University Students' Union had a debate last Thursday, titled This House believes that 'the free music mentality is a threat to the future of music.'. Ordinarily, not too exciting, but since it is the Oxford Union, they get Hilary Rosen to speak. She lost the debate, and had to have pictures like this taken. Read the writeup at NTK, or a more detailed one here. I especially like the bit where she asked all the file downloaders whether it made them buy more music."
Does anyone else start getting sick of this? The debate is getting so old and the only people saying free music is damaging is some of the artists and the RIAA. I guess it will end up being like open source vs. closed source - and I bet the artists who embrace allowing online downloads will be more sucessful in the end (of course when I make that comparison I also mean that the artist is signed up with a label because they need some form of money - but yet some artists still support downloading their music for free because they have read the research). Hope that all makes sense. What do you think?
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It'd be nice if we could have this sort of debate and result happen someplace it really matters like Congress :)
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...why the debate is framed as free music v. the music industry. We can decide to dislike both sides, and still get free music -- by encouraging musicians to self-publish either samples or entire albums as freeware or shareware. For those without internet connections and CD burners, music stores could offer a write-your-own-CD services (and I think I've seen this in prototype?).
Up to now the recording studios have been like the cartoon syndicates -- a necessary evil because they control the production, distribution, and promotion of music, with staggering overhead. Why does a 25 CD cost $18, anyway, about what it cost when invented 20 years ago? How many non-geek consumers know about this profit margin, and how loudly would they complain if they did?
The more we have third party, the closer we get to fairer, European-style representation.
Do we really want that and is it indeed fairer?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
I agree. It's getting to the point that EVERYONE has chosen sides and the resulting debate has a decidedly religious flavor (ie, no one will ever switch sides from this point on).
Interesting analogy. I have to agree with you: there is so much conflicting data that everyone seems to have made up their minds on the basis of their gut feeling. I imagine there isn't any way of resolving this.
However, I would think that we (the pro-filesharing crowd) could use this ambiguity to our advantage. The **AA wants to limit a powerful technology and impose some dubious laws. And they don't have any iron-clad statistics to back them up. It seems that the burden of proof should be on the **AA to show that filesharing definitely hurts sales. If they cannot show this -- and I don't think they can -- then all their technology-limiting plans should be rejected by the lawmakers. I'm not so naive that I believe this is going to happen, I'm just stating that in a perfect world this non-provable postulate that filesharing hurts sales should be a victory to us. There will always be people who have a "gut feeling" that this is responsible for the financial woes of the music and movie industries, but that shouldn't be enough to enact laws!
GMD
watch this
I call BS on this. What was the "different and confusing" set she asked for? I have a feeling it was the interesting part of this exchange...
Yeah, I agree. I, too, would be very interested in seeing what Rosen's follow-up questions were. Can anyone point us to an unbiased, accurate record of what happened? Maybe even a transcript? It's clear that the articles that were submitted to slashdot aren't trying to evenly present what happened that night.
GMD
watch this
I'd also say that this was a stacked audience. Let's see, you have a bunch of college students that use p2p on a regular basis, many of whom were spreading anti-RIAA propaganda (not that that is bad). And you have the head of the RIAA that is trying to keep them from doing the things they want... come on. The proposition has NO CHANCE when polling an audience like that. I'm actually surprised Rosen asked that question.
"Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
Reassuringly, the motion that "This House believes that the free music mentality is a threat to the future of music" was resoundingly defeated by a hefty 256 "Noes" to 72 "Ayes"
This is more of a popularity contest than a true debate. The RIAA's position is never going to be popular with an illegal file-swapping crowd filled with university students.
Regardless, The RIAA has every right to pursue its goals (i.e., profit) using legitimate business practices.
The RIAA is perfectly allowed to sell music using any method they want. It does not matter if downloaders purchase more CDs due to free advertising. If you believe that start a new record company with free music from your site. Nobody has a right to force a new distribution method on someone else. I prefer the BSD license, but I don't go out and illegally change GPL software to BSD. People have the right to use any license they choose. Similiarly, artists have the right to release free music if they want. They are not forced to sign a contract with anyone. Plus, the distribution method of choice - the Internet - is perfected suited for free music.
to go to a university only to face a crowd of filesharing student can either be pictured as stupidity or courage, so let's at least give her that: she was coureagous. She ran into the wolves house!
Disclaimer: because of the poor write-ups posted, I don't have a good idea of what actually happened at this debate and how fair it was. With that in mind, consider the following theory: Hillary figures she can 'win' no matter how the debate turns out. She has a chance to talk to the crowd that are the biggest filesharers. This is her chance to hopefully convince them that what they're doing is wrong. With a little luck, she'll be able to convince someone in the audience who happens to be in a position of power regarding the computer facilities of the school. She figures if the debate is 'fair' that she's got a reasonable chance to getting her message across. She won't be able to convince those whose minds are already made up, but perhaps she can bring a few students back from the Dark Side.
Now consider the case of an 'unfair' debate. If the debate is 'not fair', perhaps some students will realize that and sympathize with her. But even if she isn't able to convince anyone in the crowd that her position is right and the whole debate ends up being a crazy show, she can then take a videotape or transcript of the 'unfair' debate with her to other people (like politicians) and use that to convince swing-voters that the pro-filesharing crowd is just a bunch of hooligans. She willingly goes into the lions' den to gain sympathy from others when she shows them her 'scars'. "I tried to explain my position and look how they treated me? They're animals!"
This is just a theory. But to characterize her action as either courage or stupidity leaves out another very real possibility: calculating.
GMD
watch this
This House believes that 'the free music mentality is a threat to the future of music
Well, "this house" believes that it is rampant commercialism that is actually a threat to the future of music.
She was in a room full of people who buy and listen to music.
This is definitely NOT the place for an RIAA exec to be. They should be with other executives and the occasional politician. That way they can avoid the whole issue of customers and business models, and focus on what's really important: new legislation.
Considering how online-centric we are now, how valid is it to ask about dirtworld CD sales without finding out what kind of behavior consumers would have, if it were easy to buy the music they like online, for digital download, with price-parity with CDs, adjusted for savings in fabrication and delivery costs.
They're asking us to pay for a distribution system we don't need, and that's what offends me as I'm struggling to tear off the stupid sticker holding my new CD's jewelcase together before I put the disc into the reader to be encoded to the only format I use anyhow.
Kevin Fox
>> Regardless, The RIAA has every right to pursue its goals (i.e., profit) using legitimate business practices
Bribing Congressmen to pass a rampantly unpopular law that criminalizes fair use copying rights does not fall under the heading of "legitimate business practices". Neither does deploying technological measures to make it impossible to exercise said rights.
I'm disgusted by how many so-called libertarians are so quick to jump to the defense of the RIAA when it's obvious they have no interest whatsoever in playing by the rules of the fair market. The market has sent a pretty unequivocal message that they want the middle man out of the loop, so the middle man tries alternately to make it either illegal or impossible not to play by their rules. Bleh.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
It is good that these types of debates go on, but at this point how does this even matter? We all know Rosen is not going to be like, "Oh, I was wrong after all, music should be free for all." And nor is the opposite party going to say, "Damn, we are horrible people for stealing those poor people's livelyhoods from them."
No one is going to change their position. On top of that, this nice little debate is more or less useless. None of those students are congress people, and Berman is has shown his resolve. Nothing has changed in that exchange; we are still hurtling towards an unknown conclusion which this debate does nothing to address or even pretends to address. In the end, the students went and drank some beers and the 'big-wigs' went back home to their legal documents. This is an intellectual excersize and shows zero results other than some transcriptions and a couple webpages. We would be better off sending mailings to our representatives than listening to some nice, feel-good debate that made Rosen look foolish for a couple minutes.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
We all know that this is literally true. No one is forcing these people to sign contracts. I wish some of them would have been forced not to sign contracts, in fact. I'd have held the gun on Don Henley. If I'd have been alive then.
I'd have held two guns on Rod Stewart.
But on the other hand, if you want to be a music superstar, you have to sign a contract with a major label. Otherwise you don't get put on MTV/VH1, you don't get put on Clearchannel, you don't get put in the major record chains across the country who are penalized (by withholding of ad material and certain albums, or pushed-back release dates) for stocking music which doesn't come from a member of the RIAA.
So sure, no one is forced to, but you cannot "win" the game (assuming you are measuring success monetarily... at least it's a numeric metric) without signing with a major label.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
As another Libertarian, I agree wholeheartedly with you.
In fact, I often find myself at odds with other Libertarian-leaning individuals on the whole copyright/piracy debate.
Certainly, Thomas Jefferson himself was not a fan of the ideas of patenting ideas or extending terms of copyright out to great lengths of time.
"It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors." - Jefferson
"He who receives an idea from me, receives instructions himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." - Jefferson on Copyright
Keep you hand up if you buy more music because of it"
Hmmm... heard Funker Vogt on shoutcast a few weeks ago.
Enjoyed it. Downloaded a few tracks via gnutella. Yup, this definitely is a group I like.
Went to Best Buy. WTF? No Funker Vogt. Went to CD Warehouse. Nope. Never even heard of them, let alone my fav Apoptygma Bezerk, VNV Nation, Front Line Assembly, etc. "Sure we have industrial..." as the salescritter points at the rap section (ugh... where do they hire these people from?).
So Ms. Rosen, how am I supposed to be a complying RIAA citizen when you won't even sell me the music?
As usual, it was off to cdnow.com, buy one of everything Funker Vogt, and wait for the UPS guy.
Conclusion:
1. I'm waiving money in your face but you won't sell product to me.
2. You can't seem to figure out how to distribute music worth a damn.
3. You keep signing a few worthless artists and pumping their music (while we still don't buy it), rather than understanding the market changed on you.
4. You and the radio broadcasters sign deals trying to limit airplay to the same crap you signed, but now the radio broadcasters can't find listeners and had to destroy Internet broadcasting before it destroyed them.
So, maybe there's another problem that explains why your sales numbers suck?
*scoove*
I'd also say that this was a stacked audience. Let's see, you have a bunch of college students that use p2p on a regular basis, many of whom were spreading anti-RIAA propaganda
I followed the discussions and preparations in the CDR, although I didn't go myself. I have to say that we were not at all sure that the debate could be won. Oxford is a very strange place, and Oxford Union is stranger -- a private members-only debating society which perhaps could be described as a little bit elitist.
As to why Hilary Rosen chose to go to an debate with students -- it is because of the prestige of debating in one of the oldest debating societies in the world. You have to dress up (black tie for men), you go to a special dinner with weird and ancient customs (if you've never been to an Oxford college, you have no idea!), and so on and so on. Take a look around the Oxford Union site.
Also, with a place like Oxford Union, this isn't some shallow debate. Rather it prides itself on getting to the bottom of the issue, with lots of intelligent minds on the job. If the RIAA's case stood on logical grounds, she would likely have won the debate. That is why this is a significant result! The truth of the matter is that even with all the conservatism of Oxford, Hilary and friends couldn't make their arguments stick.