Warner Music hires Jim Griffin
p2pnet news | Music:- Warner Bros hopes Jim Griffin (right) will be able to pull at least one rabbit out of the hat to help keep the company alive in the 21st digital century.
Specifically, he’s to, “spearhead a controversial plan to bundle a monthly fee into consumers’ internet-service bills for unlimited access to music,” says Portfolio.com.
Bronfman’s decision to hire Griffin, “demonstrates the desperation of the recording industry,” says the story. “It has shrunk to a $10 billion business from $15 billion in almost a decade. Compact disc sales are plummeting as online music downloads skyrocket.”
According to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s BPI (British Phonographic Industry) , the CD will be around for a while yet, in the UK at least.
“We do in fact sell more CDs than we did ten years ago, and I suspect there’ll be a lot of albums sold on CD [in future] as well,” according to the BPI’s Matt Philips.
Be that as it may, “Nothing provokes sheer terror in the recording industry more than the rise of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks,” says the Portfolio story.
“For years, digital-music seers have argued the rise of such networks has made copyright law obsolete and free music distribution universal.
“Bronfman has asked Griffin, formerly Geffen Music’s digital chief, to develop a model that would create a pool of money from user fees to be distributed to artists and copyright holders.
“Warner has given Griffin a three-year contract to form a new organization to spearhead the plan.”
Griffin is a member of the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) advisory board and has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on file sharing and music licensing.
In 1994, he led the team that distributed the first full-length commercial song on-line and is co-founder of the Pho group, “whose members meet from Los Angeles to Moscow and beyond for discussion-oriented meals,” p2pnet posted during a 2004 Q&A with Griffin.
Among other questions, “Are the members of the Big Four record cartel right to sue people for sharing music (which may be infringing copyrights) online?” – p2pnet asked Griffin.
He answered >>>
I believe the right monetization point is network operators – wired and wireless – and not network users and not the proprietors of network services such as peered sharing companies. Ironically, network operators bought from lawmakers virtually complete immunity from responsibility for the problems their profit-making operations create. I don’t believe litigation or criminal actions ought be taken against network operators, but I do believe society needs to hold them financially responsible or otherwise address the adverse consequences of networking, amongst which are financial issues related to the rights of artists, creators and stakeholders in knowledge businesses.
As a simple statement, it’s become voluntary – not legally voluntary, not morally voluntary, but technically so – to pay for music, media and all manner of digitized creative endeavor. It’s a choice we make – shall we elect to pay, or will we copy without compensation? If we choose to copy there are more mechanisms than there is room to discuss in these answers, including discs, on-air copying, peered sharing, and so on.
Ultimately, a civilized society cannot long tolerate purely voluntary payment for art, knowledge and creativity any more than it can tolerate purely voluntary compliance with the law itself. Regardless of how compelling a proposition the Bill of Rights may be, we don’t accept the notion that compliance is voluntary, nor do we, for example, accept the notion that radio stations may choose whether or not they pay song writers for the music they use. If these things became purely voluntary, we’d have less of them.
Neither, in my opinion, can a civilized society condition access to art, knowledge and creativity on the size of one’s wallet, or the size of their parents’ wallets. There is too much at stake and it goes to the heart of unlocking the potential of every person and maximizing their contribution to the world and their participation in its democratic process. Libraries stand as strong testimony to our rich heritage of ensuring any person ought be able to read any book, hear any song, watch any movie, and as just one extreme example we guarantee even our worst criminals access to the books they need to attain their freedom and rehabilitation.
As a result of this conundrum – voluntary payment’s unworkability versus the horrors of conditional access – we need to strike a balance that delivers payment and incentive to the rights holder alongside equalized access to art and knowledge, and I believe that balance can be found in actuarial economics, not actual control of content. Many hands make light work of the pools of money needed to monetize media, and pools of money and a fair way to split them up have been the history of the intersection of technology and art.
I don’t think the problems involving networks and media rights holders too much different from the problems involving roads and automobiles, or health care. We can’t, and don’t, control vehicles in a manner than makes them safe, but we address the consequences of transportation through insurance payments, creating pools of money to address the damage that occurs. We can’t make everyone healthy, but we address the consequences through insurance pools. There are many problems that can’t and will not be solved through actual control, but their issues can be addressed through actuarial monetization.
Definitely stay tuned.
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UPDATE:- Click here for Warner Music ‘classic protection racket’
Portfolio.com – Fee for All, March 27, 2008
around for a while yet – BPI admits CD sales booming!, March 25, 2008
p2pnet – File sharing: cesspool or honeypot?, December 6, 2004
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March 28th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
just another big mouth sucking the corporate tit