RICHARDSON, Texas (Aug. 25, 2003) – A debate
is raging in the worlds of entertainment, law and technology: when “Little Johnny” downloads
his favorite rap tune from the Internet for free, is he engaging in a criminal act or is he simply
reaping the benefits of being connected to Cyberspace? Should he be prosecuted or would that amount
to persecution by overzealous, greedy corporate interests?
The debate is by no means solely an intellectual one
-huge sums of money may be at stake, not to mention the definition of legal rights in the evolving
digital domain.
The conflict will be showcased next month at a one-day
forum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., entitled “Digital Media in Cyberspace: The
Legislation and Its Business Effects.” The event, to be held Sept. 18, is sponsored by the Berkman
Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and Gartner/G2, the research arm of the business
consulting firm Gartner, Inc.
The invitation-only conference will feature presentations
by leading entertainment and media executives, civil liberties advocates, attorneys and scholars,
including Dr. Stan Liebowitz, an economist at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) School of Management.
The author of the acclaimed book, Re-Thinking the Network Economy: The True Forces that Drive the “Digital
Market Place,” Liebowitz has conducted groundbreaking research on the economic effects of piracy
on digital media.
The UTD professor of managerial economics will participate
in a “point-counterpoint” panel discussion, potentially the conference’s most intriguing
session. Joining Liebowitz will be Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association
of America, and John Perry Barlow, co-founder and vice chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Sherman will represent the viewpoint of the recording
industry, which last year sued several individuals, including college students, for illegal copying
and distribution of copyrighted music. Those cases were settled for thousands of dollars each. His
organization has threatened to bring additional lawsuits against individual computer users whom it
claims are involved in substantial amounts of copyright infringement.
Barlow is Sherman’s antagonist. His San Francisco-based
group – which on its web site claims it is “battling to protect the rights of web surfers everywhere” –
is helping defend those being sued by the recording industry.
Liebowitz stakes out the middle ground, saying that
the recording industry has “cried wolf” with the introduction of every new technology,
but that this time it has been harmed financially by unauthorized and uncompensated copying of music.
“I’ve conducted what is probably the most comprehensive
empirical investigation on the impact of MP3 downloading of music,” said Liebowitz. “The results
show that the downloading of songs from the Internet is causing real damage to the music industry — a
decline of perhaps 25 percent or more in the sale of CDs.”
However, rather than “turning a lot of kids into
criminals who are not” with thousands of individual lawsuits, Liebowitz proffers a less draconian
solution.
“I’m in favor of digital rights management, which
is technology that would prevent CDs from being copied,” said Liebowitz. “It might require
a new generation of CD players before this approach becomes feasible.”
As a last resort, Liebowitz would support what is called
a compulsory license. Under such a scenario, downloading of songs from the Internet would be permitted,
but there would be a tax instituted on the sale of all musical CDs. The tax revenue would then be
distributed to various parties in the entertainment industry.
Liebowitz foresees potential pitfalls with such a system,
however. Determining who pays for such a system and how much money goes to whom are decisions that
should be left to the market and should not be put in the hands of government agencies, he believes.
Then again, perhaps the threat of legal action will
deter would-be music pirates, Liebowitz surmised.
“Maybe the recording industry will be successful
and scare sufficient numbers of people so that the problem, although not eliminated, is sufficiently
diminished,” he said.
About UTD
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart
of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor,
enrolls more than 13,000 students. The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront
of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment
of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please
visit the university’s Web site at http://www.utdallas.edu.