Mike Masnick to Jim Griffin on Choruss
p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- Stories about Warner Music’s licensing plan are doing the rounds again and earlier today, p2pnet ran a post carrying a rebuttal from Jim Griffin, hired by WMG to put it together, of claims by TechDirt’s Mike Masnick (right) that the plan, dubbed Choruss, amounted to a Bait-And-Switch operation
“Griffin claims that my report is ‘factually incorrect in every respect’ and then refused to name a single factual mistake,” Masnick told p2pnet, continuing »»»
This was the same claim he made after my original report on the backroom presentations that were given to universities. I offered to correct any factual mistake at the time, and Griffin could come up with no actual factual mistakes. Instead, he said that it was somehow unfair to criticize the plan so early in the planning stages.
Once again, I am more than willing to correct any factual inaccuracies, but he doesn’t name any.
The only thing he suggests is that it is working with all steps of the industry, which would be good, if true, but there’s been no evidence of that yet. If he can show agreements with those outside of the record labels, I’d love to see it.
His other claim is simply unbelievable. He says that it can’t be considered a money grab because the costs will exceed the fees. That’s a sleight of hand in two separate ways. Obviously, the goal of the plan has to be to make money. Otherwise, why would any of the participants agree to it. Sure, it will lose money at the beginning, but will lock in a system to eventually divert plenty of money to middlemen, rather than letting the market pick the best model. Second, in saying the costs will exceed the fees, Griffin actually confirms exactly what we said in our original post about why it’s a bad plan: what they’re setting up is expensive, and that means we all pay for the inefficiencies he’s locking in.
Next, he claims that we were wrong in saying they’re avoiding public discussion, by noting that he’s showing up at various events, but that’s not discussion, that’s presentation. We asked him to take part in an open discussion about whether or not such a plan is even necessary, and that’s not even on the table. Instead, it’s “here’s what we planned in the backrooms, feel free to nibble around the edges.”
Every time we’ve asked Griffin to have an actual discussion with those of us who are skeptical of his plan, we get no response other than a statementwritten by Warner Music PR about how we should not be criticizing this delicate experiment until it’s too late. Mr. Griffin’s idea of “discussion” seems to be focused on staying as far away from anyone who disagrees with him as possible. That’s not discussion.
He fails to address the key problems that we outlined:
1. Why is this program even needed when plenty of musicians are coming up with business models that work today and don’t need a new mandatory license (er… “covenant not to sue”) plan?
2. Why do we need a new bureaucracy and won’t that divert funds?
3. Will the industry continue to try to shut down file sharing sites?
4. Will the industry continue to push a 3 strikes plan?Finally, I’m rather disappointed that Mr. Griffin would suggest that I am “not a responsible professional.” My record as a professional stands on its own. I think highly of Mr. Griffin, and I am sad to see him resort to personal insults, especially when he failed to address the actual substance of my post or to explain away any of these so-called falsehoods. If Mr. Griffin would like to address them, I’m all ears. In fact, I’ll be keynoting the very “music conference in Nashville” that he’ll be addressing, and I’d love to sit down with him and chat about it.
In his response to Masnick’s original story, “Choruss works with all steps in the publishing and music value chains in a manner that represents real value to both musicians and students; the goals are learning and doing the right thing,” Griffin told p2pnet, adding »»»
That is why the schools have requested this voluntary arrangement and why Choruss works to meet them halfway.
Choruss is a test, an experiment, and cannot credibly be claimed a money grab â the costs will exceed the fees. The time for learning is past due.
As for the suggestion that Choruss is avoiding public discussion, the calendar is a clear refutation: The coming week has Choruss at SXSW, a music conference in Nashville and the music educator`s conference in Boston.
We`ve done appearances and podcasts with Educause, dozens of public meetings at colleges and a keynote at Digital Music Forum.
The real challenges in testing new ideas are sufficient without addressing falsehoods that responsible professionals would`ve and could`ve fact-checked before publication.
Stay tuned.
p2pnet – TechDirt Choruss story `factually incorrect`, March 19, 2009
TechDirt – Choruss` Music Tax Plan: Bait-And-Switch, March 18, 2009
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March 20th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
The RIAA and their Labels can suck it! They are so far behind the curve in trying to get on board with the digital age, plus with suing their customers (> 40,000), there is no way they could ever save face from this fiasco. I am waiting for the day that the record labels that fund the RIAA go bankrupt.
F them and everyone that works for these parasites!
March 20th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Oh and F media sentry/safenet/european company that now works for them.