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Don't Stop File-Sharing, Says Former Pink Floyd Manager
Barence writes "The former manager of Pink Floyd has labelled attempts to clamp down on music file-sharing as a 'waste of time.' 'Not only are they a waste of time, they make the law offensive. They are comparable to prohibition in the US in the 1920s,' said Peter Jenner, who's now the emeritus president of the International Music Managers' Forum. 'It's absurd to expect ordinary members of the public to think about what they're allowed to do [with CDs, digital downloads, etc]... and then ask themselves whether it's legal or not.' The comments come as Britain's biggest ISP, BT, said it was confident that Britain's Digital Economy Act — which could result in file-sharers losing their internet connection — would be overturned in the courts, because it doesn't comply with European laws on privacy."
They are comparable to prohibition in the US in the 1920s
I wish a bittorrent network was anything like a speakeasy.
Filesharing may be free as in beer, but it does not deliver you free beer.
RIAA, Leave Them Kids Alone!
He is just upset that when the RIAA cracks down, some users will not have gotten a complete Floyd album.
"His name was James Damore."
... another brick in the firewall.
The Somali pirates. These are the ones extorting millions out of companies and threatening to kill people.
If you read TFA while watching an old Judy Garland flick on groovy couches with a bunch of your friends from college, you'll see that the naive interpretation of Jenner's sentiment given in the summary is way off.
Get it right next time, man.
If - like me - you asked yourself who exactly he is: Jenner has managed Pink Floyd, T Rex, Ian Dury, Roy Harper, The Clash, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Robyn Hitchcock, Baaba Maal and Eddi Reader (Fairground Attraction). And Billy Bragg! Jenner and his wife Sumi set up Sincere Management which managed a range of artists. (from wikipedia)
Exactly what Mr Pink up there is saying.
By the way, which one's Pink?
...a momentary lapse of unreason.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Every Henry Fonda movie is over 25 years old. Copyright doesn't need to last that long in order for the artists to receive some reasonable compensation. The fact that a crazy long copyright period made a bunch of people richer than they would otherwise be is not interesting to me.
From everything I've ever observed about performers, good ones, they'd do it for free if they couldn't get paid to do it. Losing a shot at retiring on the proceeds of one big hit wouldn't stop a single artist. It might slow down the creation of media personalities and blockbuster special-effects extravaganzas, but not artists. Color me unconcerned with the future of civilization.
Peter Jenner has one thing right: the general public doesn't understand why they can have a song on their ipod and why they can't just copy the file to their friends ipod. What is wrong about that? The only thing wrong is that someone said it was illegal.
Now if that same person has a band t-shirt they would then have to give up their band t-shirt to give it to their friend. That is where there is value that can be controlled by distributors. The artists will not starve, they will make their money on merchandising and live performances. They need to give up on making money on bits. They should be using bits to advertise their merchandise and live events - things that can be monetized.
Now lets say that Apple uses a song from a band without their permission to promote their products? That is a valid use of copyright law, the business is profiting off of the endorsement of the artist without the artists permission. A consumer spreading the works of the artists does nothing but improve the popularity of the artist, a business associating themselves with an artist has the potential to tarnish the artists reputation hence the need for them to be able to sue that company. Imagine if BP used Bono's music in their cleanup ads for the oil spill, then it puts Bono in a bad light.
The problem with stopping file sharing is how it limits communication. If you are speaking about a piece of music, a movie, a book, or news article is that we now have the ability to perfectly convey what part we are talking about. We just link to it. It is a great way to enhance communication and should be encouraged. If IP law is changed it needs to allow for this type of communication. Viral spreading of information should be encouraged, even if torrent sights like bit torrent are condemned (one is organic spreading of information, another is centralized distribution for monetary gain). Basically if you are making money off of someone else they are owed compensation, if however you are just spreading information all you are doing is advertising for them for free.
For something like an OS, or Office software, the software could be free and all income from the software could come from training and support. Yeah the company won't become a 250 billion dollar giant like microsoft or apple, but do we really need to be aggregating funds into a few companies. I don't think those companies would be in bad shape if they were just a 5-10 billion dollar company. That is 240 billion that could be going into making actual goods. It could be used to build housing, hiring employees, buying cars, etc. Hell everyone could donate all that extra money to the space program and we could build a public hotel on the moon. It is just a horrible waist of funds to drop $300 on a piece of software that 6 billion people use (I'm thinking windows on the majority of consumer desktops - they make enough funds off of businesses that it should be free to consumers). Yes I know I've been smoking the Utopian cool aid, but at no point in history has humanity been able to give something to every person on the planet. We can't do it with food, clothing, shelter, but we can do it with digital information. Yes there is money to be made on it, but it shouldn't be criminal to share information and it definitely isn't immoral.
What on earth are you talking about? You're making up a random argument ("without copyright protection and enforcement") that has nothing to do with the summary or TFA. Those discuss the reprehensible and inefficient tactics of suing members of the general public for file-sharing, and warping of the law to suit the tastes of large rightsholders (e.g. the US' DMCA and similar). No mention is made of eliminating copyright or of not enforcing against corporations (who damn well should know better).
As far as revenue in the real world, many independent artists and small labels (often a single individual) have cropped up in recent years who are successfully selling non-DRM'ed downloadable music to the general public, either directly or via intermediaries (c.f. Amazon, Beatport, iTunes, etc., etc.). For the small artists, I expect they are likely doing vastly better than they ever would through a traditional recording company contract.
It's not hard to remember, but it's also unjust. We have fair use for a reason, including format-shifting and creating backups.
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
Mod parent +1 Cigar
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Nope, they weren't run by the russian mob. Or at least in no more way than the USA Mob ran entertainment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sinatra).
Odd you bring up RIAA accounting because AllOfMP3 had the monies owed to the artists available, but RIAA refused to take it.
Compare the rates paid to the 3c/song compulsory licensing that radio (which you can tape from for everyone in the US). The money was the same.
How about I copy anything I damn well please and you can shove your artificial scarcity into the nearest orifice? In fact, let me give you a simple choice. Continue this charade of an economy based on "scarcity", OR create an economic paradigm where cost+value = price.
Everyone, including the so called "artists" has a right to make money on their works. Those that provide good works for reasonable prices with high levels of value, will. Those that rely on lying, cheating, stealing and trickery, and control of distribution... won't. The real world has shown this, time and again. Music and media is the latest in a long line of battlefields fought for rational economics. Of course, money and power tend to win out of rational thought, at least for a time. The fight is costing us far more than the shift in paradigms will, and it's not even delaying the shift. Itunes is the number 1 music market in the world. That didn't take long. How much longer before Apple realizes they can cut the middle men out and just open their own publishing studio?
There are a lot of really talented people in the music industry. Almost none of them work with or for the RIAA anymore. Once the plaque of lawyers is done picking the bones, the RIAA, and most of the rest of the "professional recording" industry will collapse and reform, hopefully into something a little more intelligent and rational. (I know, call me an idealist).