Free The Music
Cannon, Chris
FREE THE MUSIC ROLL BACK THE CULTURE COMMISSARS BY CHRIS CANNON L ike most Americans, I listen to music when I'm driving. Traveling in rural Utah, I often find myself singing along with the...
...Napster and the others have repeatedly stated their willingness to work with the labels and the artists to ensure that those who create are paid...
...By the time parents can actually listen to a songulet alone read the lyrics~its popularity is a foregone conclusion...
...Like Lucy and the proverbial football, the labels always seem to find new reasons not to license alternative channels for distributing music.While this is slowly changing, much of the damage has been done...
...If the labels succeed in extending their oligopoly onto the Internet, what might have finally been truly open competition will end up back under the commissars' control...
...Cultural oligopolies like today's recording industry produce a race to the least-common denominator, the cheapest thrill, and the tawdriest laugh...
...But when some of the options arrive smothered in pop-culture hype and are paraded before young people who have yet to form a value system, are they really choices at all...
...And we did it to help small, high-tech start-ups survive, rather than join the ranks of other companies at the bankruptcy courts...
...Traveling in rural Utah, I often find myself singing along with the likes of Diamond Rio, Tim McGraw and songs now considered "Golden Oldies...
...It accomplishes this by modernizing the existing "mechanical license" process used by the Copyright Office, enabling digital distributors~the major labels or anyone else---to quickly secure the rights to musical works and pay appropriate royalties...
...It probably shouldn't surprise anyone, but the current system benefits artists less than the record companies that typically own rights to their recordings...
...I choose Faith Hill over Snoop Dogg...
...As a conservative, I have been asking what can we do to make more availablemnot mandate m music that has a positive influence on our youth...
...This legislation will streamline the copyright system so that the major labels can no longer use its complexities as a shield from online competition...
...We do have choicesmwhat radio stations we program in our cars, what albums we buy at the record store...
...Equally important, our bill would prevent the labels from uniting behind MusicNet and Pressplay to stomp their smaller competitors...
...The bill also establishes parity between the rights enjoyed by online music retailers and brick-and-mortar music stores...
...But as the father of eight children, it's up to me to find out what my kids are listening to as well.And what I hear is often revolting...
...This label-driven publicity machine does not easily i Chris Cannon represents Utah's Third Congressional District...
...The danger in this alliance is that the copyright cabal, using laws written for other eras and technologies, will control online music distribution even more thoroughly than they do in the "real" world.They will be able to fix prices, stomp out competition and ultimately harm consumers...
...market music deemed "outside the mainstream" of Hollywood values...
...Separately, the Federal Trade Commission announced in July that it was going after Vivendi-Universal, for anticompetitive pricing and marketing activities...
...Cultural pluralism will not eliminate the bad elements, but it will allow discerning consumers more chance to choose---and discerning parents a chance to choose for their children~a higher quality of entertainment...
...machines and market power to set the trends that target our youth...
...I recognize the Constitutional protections for free speech surrounding this issue...
...The answer lies in the decades-old system by which the major record labels use their P./L...
...When people have more options, they will make better choices...
...Music on the Internet brings a whole new set of market pressures to bear...
...This is not about "stealing" music...
...32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR " NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2OOi...
...If, however, they chose not to collude, they would be unleashed to compete fiercely in the free market...
...The existence of the music oligopoly is not a coincidence...
...This coordinated effort has not gone unnoticed...
...Such an oligopoly has few incentives to improve its product, or even to safeguard it by providing parents with meaning~ l ratings information...
...The Department of Justice has announced an antitrust NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2OO...
...To address these issues, Rep...
...More telling still, all these investigations come a year after the labels entered into a consent decree, in which they promised to end industry pricefixing practices...
...Songs by popular artists like Eminem and Marilyn Manson routinely contain graphic depictions of violence, drug use, rape and murder...
...What makes it possible is a licensing system that springs out of our existing copyright law, much of which is intended to strengthen the powers of copyright holders...
...But most of all, we did so in the hope that market forces can be harnessed to give parents more tools to protect their children from the cultural commissars...
...Time-Warner, Bertelsmann and EMI have joined forces in MusicNet, whileVivendi-Universal and Sony are launching Pressplay.The two consortia will cross-license each other, so an estimated 80 percent of commercially available music will be controlled by these two behemoths...
...I would be just as opposed to the government telling me what I can or cannot listen to as I am to having the recording industry do it...
...With Napster, they are using the courts to shut it down--at least temporarily--and to try to extract ridiculous amounts of greenmail...
...Rick Boucher of Virginia and I recently introduced the Music Online Competition Act (H.R...
...In response to the Internet upstarts, the labels are launching their own Net-based music services...
...The answer is an emphatic "yes" and it hes in principles of a free market.The American music industry is dominated by five mega-conglomerates, united through a trade association, the Recording Industry Association of America...
...Make no mistake: these joint ventures will dominate the online market even more than their five parents now dominate the offline world...
...Why does today's pop culture push such filth onto our children...
...In effect, a few cultural commissars pick and choose what is to be promoted, then shape marketing strategies to create massmarket hits...
...If the labels join together in wholesale or retail ventures, they would be prohibited from giving themselves a better deal than their competition...
...Other Web sites hoping to work with the labels to license online music faced more subtle tactics...
...It should not be surprising that, faced with a challenge to its market power, the copyright cabal moved decisively...
...Scores of companies have gone out of business, or sold out to the major labels under threat of litigation...
...The five major labels control an estimated 80 percent of the entire catalogue of recorded music...
...9 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 3 1 investigation of the RIAA's dealings with digital music competition...
...But the bottom line is that the recording industry takes whatever steps are necessary to defend a system that allows them to control the hitmaking machinery...
...Napster showed us that at least 45 million Americans are thirsting for more variety and accessibility--anywhere, anytimeuthan the major labels have been willing to provide...
...I don't think so...
...So, is there any role for government...
...2724...
...We introduced the Music Online Competition Act to stop the recording industry from vaporizing its competition...
Vol. 34 • November 2001 • No. 8
