From: Rohit Khare (rohit@uci.edu)
Date: Wed May 31 2000 - 14:46:10 PDT
At 11:11 AM -0400 5/31/00, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>X-Loop: politech@vorlon.mit.edu
>X-URL: Politech is at http://www.politechbot.com/
>
>The Seagram Company owns Universal Studios and Universal Music group.
>Seagram is a member of the RIAA, which has sued Napster.
>
>Excerpt from the Seagram CEO's remarks:
>>We need to create a standard that balances one's right to privacy with
>>the need to restrict anonymity, which shelters illegal activity...
>>[Otherwise we] countenance anarchy. To do so would undermine the very
>>basis of our civilized society. In the appropriation of intellectual
>>property, myMP3.com, Napster, and Gnutella [are] the ringleaders, the
>>exemplars of theft, of piracy, of the illegal and willful appropriation of
>>someone else's property.
>
>Also see:
>
>Anti-Napster fight takes aim at online anonymity
>May 31, 2000
>http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1983353.html?tag=st.ne.1430735..ni
>
>-Declan
My other favorite excepts are included below. They defy further
comment... Rohit
> If intellectual property is not protected - across
>the board, in every case, with
> no exceptions and no sophistry about a changing
>world - what will happen?
> Intellectual property will suffer the fate of the buffalo.
>
> For the great ferment of works and ideas, including
>your own, if taken at will
> and without restraint, have no chance of surviving
>any better than did the
> buffalo.
>...
> So am I warring against the culture of the
>Internet, threatening to depopulate
> Silicon Valley as I move a Roman legion or two of
>Wall Street lawyers to
> litigate in Bellevue and San Jose? I have moved
>those lawyers - or some of
> them - but I have done so, and will continue to do
>so - not to attack the
> Internet and its culture but for its benefit and to
>protect it. For its benefit.
>
> What would the Internet be without "content?" It
>would be a valueless
> collection of silent machines with gray screens. It
>would be the electronic
> equivalent of a marine desert - lovely elements,
>nice colors, no life. It would
> be nothing.
>...
> But the principles of law, of
> justice and of civilization will not be overturned.
>If the Internet requires these
> basic principles to be sacrificed so that it may
>prosper, it will wither and die
> like the Hantavirus, which expires as it devours
>the very life that would sustain
> it.
>...
> Let me now turn to my fifth point. We must restrict
>the anonymity
> behind which people hide to commit crimes.
>Anonymity must not be
> equated with privacy. As citizens, we have a right
>to privacy. We have
> no such right to anonymity.
>...
> In the appropriation of intellectual property,
>myMP3.com, Napster, and
> Gnutella (which has stolen from the breakfasts of
>100 million European
> children even its name) are, in my opinion, the
>ringleaders, the exemplars of
> theft, of piracy, of the illegal and willful
>appropriation of someone else's
> property.
>
> What individuals might do unthinkingly for
>pleasure, in my view, they do with
> forethought for profit, justifying with weak and
>untenable rationale their theft
> of the labor and genius of others.
>...
> World War II was won by the Allied forces, not only
>because we were right,
> but also because we had more men and women, more
>weaponry and more
> money, and that money in turn would train more men
>and women and build
> more weaponry.
>
> But being fair, and being just, is what allowed our
>civilized society to survive
> and prosper, while that of our conquering ally, the
>Soviet Union, cracked,
> crumbled and collapsed because it attempted to
>perpetuate a society that
> was fundamentally unjust, and unfair.
>
> And if the Internet should require an unjust and
>unfair paradigm in order to
> perpetuate itself, then it too will crack, crumble
>and collapse, and it won't
> take five decades of Cold War politics for it happen.
>...
> Thank you for letting me speak from the heart.
=========================================================================
http://www.seagram.com/news/current-press/scl052600b.html
Remarks As Prepared
For Delivery by
Edgar Bronfman, Jr.
Real Conference 2000
San Jose, California
May 26, 2000
Thank you and good morning. I'm very happy to be
here and to witness first
hand the mission upon which Rob, his colleagues at
Real and Real's partners
have embarked. That mission is vitally important to
better serve a world
hungry for information and entertainment.
In partnering with Universal, a company dedicated to
delivering entertainment
to consumers everywhere, including via the Internet,
we have together
committed to creating a top-quality consumer
experience in which the content
delivered is completely secure.
That work will be the bedrock on which huge creative
and industrial efforts
will be based.
In the next few minutes, I'd like to focus on some
critical issues that I believe
to be central to the continued operation and
expansion of the Internet. New
technologies are creating tremendous opportunities
for businesses and
consumers.
But, like many innovations throughout history,
today's digital technologies are,
at the same time, spawning serious and fundamental challenges.
While I'll touch on the opportunities that lie ahead
for all of us - and they are
without question immense - I want to sound a
different note at this conference
by addressing the challenges. Specifically,
combating the dangerous and
misguided notion that property is not property if
it's on the Web, and the
piracy that that notion perpetuates.
In addition, I want to discuss the very real
difference between privacy and
anonymity. In the blurred vision of speed and
innovation, those two quite
separate values have become indistinct, and that
lack of distinction is
currently having - and will continue to have - a
deleterious effect on our
culture, our society and the long-term growth of the Internet.
Clearly, in this New World of technology built upon
technology, opportunities
abound.
If the past is prologue, then the advent of new
technologies has much to offer
both the creators of entertainment and those who
enjoy and consume it.
And the repercussions of this current technological
revolution will dwarf the
changes that were brought about by previous
advances. We now live in an
era in which a few clicks of your mouse will make it
possible for you to
summon every book ever written in any language,
every movie ever made,
every television show ever produced, and every piece
of music ever
recorded.
Music is on the leading edge of this revolution, and
because of that, it has
become the first product to illuminate the central -
and I believe the most
critical - challenge for this technological
revolution: The protection of
"intellectual property rights."
For all of us, "property" rights are well understood
and universally accepted.
You own a home. You own a car. They're yours - they
belong to you. They
are your property. Well, your ideas belong to you,
too. And "intellectual
property" is property, period.
But there are those who believe that because
technology can access property
and appropriate it, then somehow that which is yours
is no longer yours
-because technology has made it simple and easy for
someone else to take it
from you.
If intellectual property is not protected - across
the board, in every case, with
no exceptions and no sophistry about a changing
world - what will happen?
Intellectual property will suffer the fate of the buffalo.
For the great ferment of works and ideas, including
your own, if taken at will
and without restraint, have no chance of surviving
any better than did the
buffalo.
And why is this important? Because you, like we in
the entertainment
business, are thoroughly dependent on patents and
copyright. You need them
no less than we do, to protect your processes, your
conceptions, your
software code, your procedures, your designs, your ideas.
My central belief that the protection of
intellectual property rights is vital to
the prosperity of the Internet, and my assertion
that "you need them no less
than we do," illuminate my purpose in making this
address: The Internet does
not exist, and cannot prosper in a world that is
separate from our civilized
society and the fundamental laws upon which it is based.
So am I warring against the culture of the Internet,
threatening to depopulate
Silicon Valley as I move a Roman legion or two of
Wall Street lawyers to
litigate in Bellevue and San Jose? I have moved
those lawyers - or some of
them - but I have done so, and will continue to do
so - not to attack the
Internet and its culture but for its benefit and to
protect it. For its benefit.
What would the Internet be without "content?" It
would be a valueless
collection of silent machines with gray screens. It
would be the electronic
equivalent of a marine desert - lovely elements,
nice colors, no life. It would
be nothing.
The main challenge for you in continuing the growth
of the Internet at this time
is not taxation; it is not government regulation; it
is not in any way technical. It
is, rather, to manage, preserve and protect the sun
around which all these
planets make their stately circles.
That sun is not an operating system or even the
greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts Internet itself:
It is the content, without
which the Internet would die in a day.
The main challenge for my colleagues and me is
really the same - for your
interests and ours are not separate, they are
closely, inextricably linked.
And so I will, as the leader of one of the world's
foremost content
companies, fight to preserve the creativity and the
genius of creators
everywhere, including the ones in this room.
Right now, Universal is engaging in five areas in
order to defend and promote
the works of the great talents with whom we are
privileged to be associated.
First, we are focused on creating and launching a
consumer-preferred
and legal system for consumers to access the media
they desire -
beginning with music.
We will launch a secure downloading format later
this summer that will be the
start of making our content widely available in digital form.
We want downloadable music to be easy to find, and
its delivery to be fast,
convenient, dependable and secure. That's why we've
partnered with Real,
Magex and InterTrust Technologies.
And the multi-media product we will launch will be
more than just music.
We are providing artists with a broader canvas on
which to express
themselves, and we are creating a far richer
experience for the consumer. For
example, consumers will have access to album art,
lyrics, production notes
and photos of the artists, links to other sites and,
eventually, music videos.
We'll also offer the chance for them to chat on line
with artists.
And because of the security our product will offer,
consumers' privacy will
also benefit because their files and their systems
won't be corrupted.
In addition to this product and system we've
developed, earlier this month,
Universal Music and Sony Music announced a joint
venture to develop
subscription-based services that will include music
and video offerings across
every possible platform.
We are very aware of the intense and the vast demand
that exists on the part
of music lovers to find the music they want, when
they want it, where they
want it, all the time. And we are responding by
delivering competitive - and
legal - systems for them to do so.
Second, we know that going into a record store and
removing a CD is
wrong. It is stealing. It is thievery.
We will re-emphasize this truth and articulate this
message in an educational
effort, with our industry allies, targeted to the
great majority of people who
want to do the right thing - yet, may not fully
comprehend that accessing
copyrighted material without proper payment or
permission in the digital
world, is as wrong as it is in the physical world.
Each new technological advance inevitably requires
new behaviors. When
tape recorders came along, we grappled with the
distinctions to be made
between taping things for your own enjoyment and
selling the tapes. When
photocopiers came along, we had to deal with how
much of something could
be copied and under what circumstances without
constituting theft.
Now the Internet has created a newer version of the
same issues. Once
again, we need to thrash out how intellectual
property can and should be
protected in the context of new, digital technologies.
The Internet world is a brave new world. But make no
mistake, it could only
have been created and it will only survive, in the
context of our civilized
world, which has taken humanity centuries to construct.
This technological revolution will reshape it -
perhaps even more dramatically
than the Industrial Revolution reshaped its world.
But the principles of law, of
justice and of civilization will not be overturned.
If the Internet requires these
basic principles to be sacrificed so that it may
prosper, it will wither and die
like the Hantavirus, which expires as it devours the
very life that would sustain
it.
Universal's third initiative is the use of
technology. Just as technology
gives, so can it take away. As technology enables
crime, so can it be
used to protect us from crime and criminals.
We have available to us growing arsenals of
technological weapons that will
be brought to bear on inappropriate access to
material on the Internet.
Whether it is better and more robust methods of
security, or tools to track
down those who ignore right from wrong, technology
will offer the owners of
property at least as much comfort as it may
currently offer to hackers and
spies, pirates and pedophiles.
Technology exists that can trace every Internet
download and tag every file.
These tools make it possible to identify those who
are using the Internet to
improperly and illegally acquire music and other
copyrighted information.
While adhering to the principle of respect for
individual privacy, we fully
intend to exploit technology to protect the property
which rightfully belongs to
its owners.
The fourth route we have already pursued is to
utilize existing laws to
bring to justice those who demonstrate contempt for law and
copyright, and seek to profit from that which is not
lawfully theirs.
Here, we have already seen some major successes:
In late April, a U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New
York ruled that myMP3.com was liable for
copyright infringement.
In mid-May, the U.S. District Court in Northern
California ruled
against Napster. The court denied Napster's
claim that it was a mere
conduit, and the court determined that Napster
had not taken
adequate steps to keep repeat infringers, who
use pirated material,
from using the site.
Another recent victory confirming the
application of copyright law to
cyberspace involved the unlawful dissemination
of DVD anti-copy
codes.
A fourth case involving the retransmission of
television signals over the
Internet resulted in a clear-cut victory for
copyright holders. The judge
in this case enjoined iCraveTV from
re-transmitting broadcast signals
via the Web from Canada.
These four court rulings illustrate the legal
process that is defining the
boundaries of right and wrong as intellectual
property rights are applied to a
new technological era.
All of us who believe in the right to own property,
and therefore in the
sanctity of copyright, will be fiercely aggressive
in this area. We will fight for
our rights and those of our artists, whose work,
whose creations, whose
property are being stolen and exploited. We will
take our fight to every
territory, in every court in every venue, wherever
our fundamental rights are
being assaulted and attacked.
Let me now turn to my fifth point. We must restrict
the anonymity
behind which people hide to commit crimes. Anonymity
must not be
equated with privacy. As citizens, we have a right
to privacy. We have
no such right to anonymity.
Privacy is getting your e-mail address taken off of
"spam" mailing lists;
privacy is making sure some hacker doesn't have
access to your social
security number or your mother's maiden name. On
line, privacy is assuring
that what you do, so long as it is legal, is your
own business and may not be
exploited by others.
Anonymity, on the other hand, means being able to
get away with stealing, or
hacking, or disseminating illegal material on the
Internet - and presuming the
right that nobody should know who you are. There is
no such right. This is
nothing more than the digital equivalent of putting
on a ski mask when you
rob a bank.
Anonymity, disguised as privacy, is still anonymity,
and it must not be used to
strip others of their rights, including their right
to privacy or their property
rights. We need to create a standard that balances
one's right to privacy with
the need to restrict anonymity, which shelters
illegal activity.
We cannot suggest that the ready and appropriate
distinctions we make
between privacy and anonymity in the physical world
are irrelevant in the
digital world. To do so would be to countenance
anarchy. To do so would
undermine the very basis of our civilized society.
In the appropriation of intellectual property,
myMP3.com, Napster, and
Gnutella (which has stolen from the breakfasts of
100 million European
children even its name) are, in my opinion, the
ringleaders, the exemplars of
theft, of piracy, of the illegal and willful
appropriation of someone else's
property.
What individuals might do unthinkingly for pleasure,
in my view, they do with
forethought for profit, justifying with weak and
untenable rationale their theft
of the labor and genius of others.
They rationalize what they do with a disingenuous
appeal to utopianism:
Everything on the Internet should be free.
Other than the gifts of God and Nature, that which
is free is free only because
someone else has paid for it. What of the
extraordinary gifts of software and
whole operating systems of which we sometimes read?
They are rare, and sometimes they are loss leaders.
Some of the donors may
regret their generosity when later they are
confronted with their children's
college tuition and orthodontic bills, but yes, they
have given, and they have
given freely.
There is a difference, however, between giving and
taking. Had those donors
been compelled to do what they have done, it would
be a tale not of
generosity but of coercion, not of liberality but of
servitude. Those whose
intellectual property is simply appropriated on the
Internet or anywhere else,
are forced to labor without choice or recompense,
for the benefit of whoever
might wish to take a piece of their hide.
If this is a principle of the New World, it is
suspiciously like the Old World
principle called slavery.
It is against this that we have initiated legal
action. It is not, and will not be,
because we wish to suppress ingenious methods by
which our products may
be delivered, but because we wish to maintain
rightful control and receive fair
compensation.
The massive power of the Internet can permanently
wipe out and shut down
in one unthinking moment, a writer who may depend
for his living on the sale
of 5 or 10 thousand copies of his book. It can
devastate a musician who sells
a few thousand copies of a homemade CD to his fans
in some small and little
known community.
And these would only be the first casualties. The
rest would follow as the
very basis of the New Economy was undermined.
Undermined - by whom?
Well, not by most people, who have stated in
overwhelming majorities time
and again that they would be perfectly happy to pay
a fair price for what they
receive, but by a very small segment who would
profit by cultivating and
taking advantage of each person's least admirable qualities.
And while it is often true that ambiguity exists at
the core of a controversy,
here, however, is perhaps the clearest exception to
date to that general rule
of ambiguity, for the dangers are obvious, the
issues familiar, the principles
long established and for good reason.
To those who would abandon or subvert those
principles, I say we are right
with the Constitution, in which protection for
intellectual property is founded;
right with the common law; right with precedent and
right with what is fair and
just.
But being fair, or being just, in a battle for
survival is often not enough.
World War II was won by the Allied forces, not only
because we were right,
but also because we had more men and women, more
weaponry and more
money, and that money in turn would train more men
and women and build
more weaponry.
But being fair, and being just, is what allowed our
civilized society to survive
and prosper, while that of our conquering ally, the
Soviet Union, cracked,
crumbled and collapsed because it attempted to
perpetuate a society that
was fundamentally unjust, and unfair.
And if the Internet should require an unjust and
unfair paradigm in order to
perpetuate itself, then it too will crack, crumble
and collapse, and it won't
take five decades of Cold War politics for it happen.
That is why it is in your interest to join our fight
to protect and defend the
property rights of creators everywhere. And that is
why we are bringing our
fight to the court of justice and to the court of
public opinion.
We will fight our battle in the marketplace as well,
by bringing our products
to consumers with innovative, legal,
consumer-preferred solutions. And we
will work with the research laboratories of
technology companies throughout
the world, so that we may better protect our
property and promote our
purpose.
Let this be our notice then to all those who hold
fairness in contempt, who
devalue and demean the labor and genius of others,
that because we have
considered our actions well and because we are
followers without reticence
of a clear and just principle, we will not retreat.
For in the end, this is not only a fight about the
protection of music or movies,
software code or video games. Nor is it a fight
about technology's promise or
its limitations. This is, at its core, quite simply
about right and wrong.
Thank you for letting me speak from the heart.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 01 2000 - 02:37:42 PDT