Department of Alchemy 4-273

On Thursday, the Office of the Dean of Students hosted a panel discussion and Q&A with two members of the RIAA. Besides my surprise at the scarcity of scathing questions, the panel was informative yet also rhetorically dissuasive.

In terms of this post… I took more extensive notes at the event and will post them below. At the moment, I’m still ambivalent over the issue of liveblogging. I recently came across some liveblogging over on a post on Sam Jackson’s blog (about the college admissions process and his experiences at Yale), and I am still irritated with the compositional style. For now, I’ll be “note-ing,” I suppose. And by that, I mean I’ll simply copy and paste my unformatted, transcribed notes, unedited from the time written. I suppose it would be easier on you readers if I were to organize my note structure so that you could derive the maximal message from these briskly-typed words and erratic punctuation. If I agree with myself in the near future, I will. For now, my notes…

Notes from “RIAA Presentation w/Q&A” at Boston University

(G) Mitch Glazier - Executive Vice President, Government and Industry Relations
(L) Jonathan Lamy - Senior Vice President, Communications
(P) a professor at the College of Communications (whose name I didn’t record)
(Q) questions from the audience

G: music industry: in place in history of great transition: have to implement enforcement program against individuals (unexpected, didn’t ‘want’ to do it); position: if have to do it, done in way that’s fair/effective

worked on: judiciary committee: has jurisdiction over intellectual property issues; about same time: Napster commercialized; misimpression: enforcement is what we do; 3-5% of time spent on enforcement;

RIAA: tradegroup: represents major record companies and labels; federal/state/artist/industry relations; only a few artists make the money that people associate with top artists; creators: make little money, rights they have to make this amount: important; advocating for those rights: then becomes important
also run Gold/Platinum Record program
on lobbying side: tradework: to make sure artists have access in new markets, work against piracy of American products abroad

L: job: put happy face on unpleasant task; how we got to where we are today in terms of lawsuits: we didn’t want to do it, reluctant: came to point 2002/04: industry had lost 1/3 of revenue, had to lay off thousands of people; pursued Napster/Kazaa, some success: piracy still prevalent; penetrated public consciousness
also: educate: younger kids; try to offer music in legal ways: 3-4 years ago: crit: industry: not moving fast enough; now: untrue; marketplace will only work if distanced from methods to get music for free;

G: record company: used to be marketing/distribution company; now: not distribution company (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft); record companies: good news: more people innovating, RIAA: can only license them to do it; licensing: can’t control it; biggest complaints: not against music or record companies; used to be: intellectual property: used to be niche piece of law, now: comm/IP law: blended together; business models that work in legal standpoint: must be created
in standpoint: must find new business models while keeping law
effects of lumpy period: lawsuits

Q: why aren’t going after companies (ie. Kazaa) instead of individuals:

L: we are: lawsuit against Napster: successful; Kazaa: settled; Grokster: went to Supreme Court in 2006: court ruled in RIAA favor: BearShare/eDonkey, etc: worked out deals; lawsuit: pending for Limewire;
answers: 1) it is preference for what want to do

G: users: who are actually stealing; right/wrong: based in individuals; pulling down estimated $10 mill/month; users: benefitting as time goes on; going after services: absolutely necessary: but not going to solve problem by itself
any other industry in US: if had lost 1/3 industry in 5 year period: would have been widespread panic

Q: fair/efffective/reasonable: damages: can exceed $750/song; legitimate purchases of media: when downloaded: not intentional act; fair to be punishing them? tendency of individual to share; where is the incentive for the RIAA to seek a new business model; overall question: why make media?

L: not money making exercise: lose money in lawsuits; how to manage program w/ effective deterents but with sense of reasonableness about it; allow people to settle; up to $4/5k if case goes far; minimum under law: $750 per infringement: will use that amount even if user has thousands of songs;

G: do want deterrents; this IS theft: we and artists view this as theft; coming up w/ reasonable way to enforce: kind of anomaly; have to respect fact that people are in certain income bracket/demographic; when RIAA goes looking on public networks: don’t know who person is, just have number; if have lawsuit: against number; may know if at university or organization or commercial organization (.uni, .org, .com); don’t know who in household could download it, just IP at a computer;
tactic: send letters to universities before have to deal with IP addresses: to settle before we have to approach you directly

Q: don’t always specify damages: $220,000 situated by jury in Jamie ~ case

L: RIAA: didn’t ask for specific amount, left it up to the jurors

G: watch interviews w/ jurors

Q: jurors didn’t just come up with a number

L: judge gave them range under law, jury decided based on variety factors

P: bad experience with jury duty: don’t entrust your case to a court jury

Q: look at statistics for piracy; bulk: occurs overseas; what is RIAA doing to pursue these interests?; why haven’t seen same sort of enforcement in sp. China?

G: time spent in China; IFPI in London: part of big national group; ARIA: RIAA equivalent in Asia; spend so much time through lobbying and trade pressure: to put intellectual property provisions in government

L: RIAA/U.S. just sued China, we’re threatened trade sanctions; China: focused on image; huge: censorship issues; dealing with market where only 2% of artists can be shown; benefit of US: intellectual property engine: produce most information that people want; problem: rest of the world: the user, US: the owner; short-term: when trying to bolster economy: doing it on counterfeiting: works; long-term: will fail

Q: lawsuits: not moneymaking exercise; do you make money off of lawsuits, where does money go?

L: back into program

Q: not given back to artists

G: doesn’t even pay for program

Q: large sums of money made/lost: whatever profit goes back into simply RIAA or record labels

L: not profit, helps pay for program, doesn’t cover cost of program

G: program: not self funded; RIAA: subsidizes the program

Q: how do companies generate revenue? ie. Limewire

G: changed business model; a lot of people pay Limewire $29 for use of limewire client with no advertising; used to sell upgraded version: no advertising, no software client (aka spyware client); spyware: bugs, privacy issues, also responsible for crashing computers; Limewire: new business decision: instead of making money simply through advertising, switched to offering ad-free version for a fee; millions: pay $29 to exchange files w/ other people w/o burden of advertising; now how they mostly make their money; past: banners, spyware, & alternate version; now: from $29 program

Q: give us timeline of how to find someone illegally downloading, send out notification, when it gets to person, when people go to court

L: daily basis: online investigative team: anonymous sweep: can’t target any university or particular person; once evidence is collected: ie user uploading # of songs: after weeks: new wave of prelawsuit letters: will be included in that wave; entity: will show IP: letters sent to IT person at university: forwarded on to student or faculty: given 20 days to contact RIAA and hopefully resolve problem: from when letter is sent (not received); encourage university to forward letters: why deprive student opportunity to settle?; if not heard from, RIAA goes on john doe front: look at IP, try to subpoena university to find person’s identity; if letter is still ignored: will file named complaint: filed in federal court that says you’re sued;

Q: when would the settlement be off the table?

L: original settlement: 20 days to contact; after next letter: original settlement is off the table; costs more money to go to court

Q: why 20 day period?

G: have to pick period: talked to universities: what’s process, how long is reasonable to be forwarded

Q: IT guy: student doesn’t even start clock; time period in past: 30 days starts after student gets letters; BU needs time to
last set of letters: came with 20 day period w/ no explanation; wanted to push back to 30 days: needed time to find student, contact parents/lawyer, etc; can time period change back to 30? because once period is gone, settlement is off the table; w/ short window: doesn’t give student enough time to consider settling
how long does it take at BU? — goes through IT, general council office, dean of students office (who sends out actual letters); students receive letters; emails/phone calls exchanged for technical & legal questions; BU: tries to do it as fast as possible; 2-4 days before student even hears

L: wants contact information for BU IT guy

Q: “worst company”; angered people; lost fans for musicians; what is endgame? where will you be in 10 years?

G: multiply new marketing strategies & business models by 10 or 100: so many new ways to approach situation; endgame: business models that come from consumer demand, that match technological capabilities that mirror those available in the market; working with licensing & distribution partners: necessary;

L: before began litigation: P2P traffic: growing; now: flatter: partly reflection of RIAA’s action; now: public awareness of what you can/can’t do; legal marketplace: grown: 2/3 years ago: revenue streams: zero, now: 25%; legal marketplace: given footing to succeed; had nothing happened: P2P piracy: more significant; people: not buying based on perception of RIAA

Q: detection methods: not stated by partners

G: how to discover violations: P2P open network: advertising infringement to rest of world; would they explicitly state their methods? crawler technologies;

Q: education: most people not education about copyright law, even lawyers: not educated; how will consumer know if website is properly licensed? how many people know how to share their songs, etc legally?

G: P2P: legal technology; not that itself, but if you’re abusing technology to achieve end; media & even academic articles: question: whether or not business model of these companies: “legal”? surveys done by RIAA: people said: looks like it was legitimate; general confusion about if OK to take files/someone else’s work; consumers: duped; [section 106/107 of copyright act]

P: question of whether P2P was legal: debate: substantial non-infringing use? judges: 3 said yes, 3 said no, 3 said maybe;

L: no dispute over law that is clear; we’re enforcing our rights based on law; what we’re bringing lawsuits about is clear-cut: pure old copyright law; no court: has rejected any cases

G: 1995: intellectual property treaties; US: signed onto treaty: demand that countries signed: making available right; US: took pronounced position: don’t need to amend laws because have already right of publication; publication/distribution: synonymous?

Q: clarification: how you determine if you were actually infringing; ie. wireless routers; UMG v. Lindor

L: not interested in suing someone not liable for their actions; want to determine actual infringer

G: also don’t want to provide game map for beating the system; ultimately: important to enforce rights against the correct person

Q: digital marketplace correcting itself; cooperation with users; DRM & the future of linking to music

G: most of linked sites now: licensed sites; future of digital marketplace: will exist of many sites/services by small innovators and others who achieve licensing & who work to distribute with creators in an official way;
record companies: own the copyrights
notice of takedown: website or service is free from liability, until receive notice: then lose immunity & can be taken down for liability