Music piracy debate returns to OU
By Samantha Pirc, Campus Life writer
February 15, 2008 | 8 p.m.
The Baker Hot Topic Debate Series continued last Thursday evening with a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead taking on a record industry professional to debate music piracy – a topic all too well known on Ohio University’s campus.
The crowd of students was considerably smaller compared to the more than 1,000 who attended the first debate on legalization of marijuana. The debate also started almost 30 minutes late because one of the debaters arrived late to Athens.
John Barlow, a former Wyoming rancher who helped cowrite lyrics for the Grateful Dead for 24 years, represented those who believe that music should be free to whoever wants to listen to it. As the man who first used the term “cyberspace” to the place it presently describes, Barlow was the cofounder of the Electric Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization that defends people’s digital rights. Barlow also once wrote “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.”
“I find this debate to be quaint,” Barlow said in the opening of the debate. He went on to declare victory for his side of the debate.
Barlow told the audience that when he wrote lyrics for the Grateful Dead, people would come to their concerts and tape the music. At first the people were thrown out, but Barlow said it was terrible to see the look on people's faces when they were being punished for loving the Grateful Dead's music too much. After realizing that, Barlow said that the band allowed people to stay even if they were taping the concert.
“In order to say that something is theft, you have to believe that the thing stolen is property,” Barlow said. “I don’t think expression is property.” He stated that music did not start to become truly valuable to the music industry until it was shared. Once music could be shared free online, listeners no longer had to pay for the CD and its containers. That is when the record companies started to get mad, Barlow said.
Barlow spoke of the people who manage music artists, calling them “mean sons of bitches,” and saying it is not really fair for them to have control over something they do not create and reap the benefits of music they do not write just “so they can drive around Beverly Hills in their Porsches.” He said it is likely that the record industry will eventually win the debate “sooner or later because [the record executives] are in it for the money, and [artists] are not.”
“The main reason the record industry is in bad shape is because they are putting out crap,” Barlow said. "Part of the reason they are putting out crap is because they are focusing their attention at the wrong problem.”
Tess Taylor, president and founder of the National Association of Record Industry Professionals (NARIP), was Barlow’s opponent in the debate. Taylor runs not just the NARIP but also the Los Angeles Music Network. According to her personal profile page on the NARIP Web site, Taylor is “deeply annoyed by people who think music should be free,” and she let her feelings be known during the debate.
“I want to say first and foremost that stealing is wrong,” Taylor said in her opening remarks. “What kind of world would it be if all your individual work resulted in nothing?”
Taylor said that anything that can be digitized is now subject to theft and that it is not fair that musical artists have been singled out. Allowing music to be distributed free online is causing a shift of money away from the people who create the music over to the people who distribute it, and Taylor said that Barlow is one of those people.
Copywriting protects the expression of the author, and when music piracy occurs it is not just record industries that are hurt, Taylor said. Illegal downloads can cause layoffs at all stages of the recording industry, and Taylor said she wants people to know that it is real people losing their jobs, not just fat, rich executives driving Porsches.
“It is wrong to vilify the corporations when it's rank-and-file people who are hurt the most when things aren’t going well,” Taylor said.
In opposition to statements Barlow made about “Dead Heads,” loyal Grateful Dead fans, Taylor pointed out that the days of following a band around the country are over and said that she disagreed greatly with most of what Barlow said.
After each stated his and her case, Barlow and Taylor actually debated for quite a few minutes before answering questions from students, something that was not scheduled but the moderator allowed anyway.
The conversation between the two was quite tense throughout the program, and the only agreement came when Taylor admitted that the record industry was putting out a lot of crap.
However, the two actually shared a laugh with the audience when they realized they were going to have to ride together in the same car back to the hotel.
---