[IP] RIAA wants your fingerprints
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Dave Farber +1 412 726 9889
...... Forwarded Message .......
From: Mary Shaw <mary.shaw@xxxxxxxxx>
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 08:21:50 -0400
Subj: Re: [IP] RIAA wants your fingerprints
On Tue, 08 Jun 2004 7:52 -0400, Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: gep2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> WHAT ON EARTH ARE THESE PEOPLE THINKING!!!!?????
They are trying to replace the doctrine of first sale in favor of
contracts, specifically single-user licenses.
Both make quite plausible market models. In a fair market there would
be room for both, with appropriate pricing. Frankly, most of the
stuff being sold now isn't worth a premium for rights beyond listening
to it for a week.
If we had pricing that allowed me to pay, say, several dollars for
ownership of a great recording of Beethoven's Ninth and a nickel for
rights to listen to a current ditty for a week, I'd be happy.
The problem now is the convergence of easy replication and
concentration of market ownership (near-monopoly power). RIAA seems
to be claiming, in effect, that ease of replication makes the
ownership market unsustainable so they'll only enter the license
market (yes, I've seen the data that questions the claim, but that
doesn't make the claim go away). Then the lack of market forces to
drive down the license price leaves the sellers in a position to
charge (or try to charge) ownership-level prices for short-term goods.
In any case, if you're planning on passing along your digital
recordings to your great-grand-children, you should be worrying about
whether they'll be able to do anything with the recordings. A few
weeks ago I spent half a day finding a program that would read a
Powerpoint file I created 4-5 years ago. What makes you think that
your g-g-kids will be able to read MP3s or whatever you pass down to
them, and what makes you think that they will regard the quality with
any higher regard than we now regard wax cylinders (quaint, but a
little goes a long way)?
Mary Shaw
Carnegie Mellon University
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