Downloaded Music and Strange Bedfellows

Downloaded Music and Strange Bedfellows
by Mike Madias, Clinical Sociologist and Columnist

April 25, 2003

Columnist Mike Madias These are strange times my friends. I had a dream. I was sitting at a neighborhood bar. There was a jukebox in the corner. I was drinking beer with my close friends: an FBI agent and a record company executive. And we were pumping quarters into the slot of the jukebox; listening to the music and sharing a pepperoni pizza, (maybe even sharing a joint). We were in happy agreement as we dipped the crazy bread in the crazy sauce. We toasted to each others health and prosperity as we gulped down the suds and sucked on a jay (when the phoebe wasn't looking). But, there was more. Some other guy guy was sitting forlorn, in the corner, not eating any pizza. He kept talking into his cell phone, asking the same question over and over again. What could this mean? Luckily, for me, I used to be a psychotherapist, in the days before I decided to grow up and work for a living, and after a bit of self analysis, the meaning became clear.

I was dreaming about the Bush administration and the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA). The guy in the corner represented the Verizon Corporation. The jukebox represented music that you have to pay to hear. And pepperoni pizza, beer and weed represented the three basic food groups. Let me explain it to you. A few days ago the Department of Justice set aside its highly successful actions of stopping terrorism by arresting half of the population of Dearborn. It decided to bust college kids who download music. The DOJ does not care all that much if you fill your hard drive with dirty pictures, as long as you don't go sharing music online. The DOJ sure has it values straight, doesn't it?

This whole caper started last year when the RIAA wanted to bust some guy who had downloaded 600 tracks of music over the Verizon Internet service. The RIAA wanted to know the name of this cyber anarchist who was ruining the recording industry by getting tracks that had been ripped from CDs and shared
online. They wanted his name so that they could sue him. Verizon would not give up the identity of its subscriber to the RIAA. So, if the RIAA couldn't get this single guy, they decided to go after the Verizon Corporation. Perhaps the RIAA could force Verizon to give up the name and email address of the perp. A few days ago, the DOJ sided with the RIAA in court. Ashcroft's minions filed a brief with the federal judge. The DOJ is required by law to render its opinion on any matter that involves constitutional law.

There is a law on the books called the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This law says that the legal and financial rights of the producers of intellectual property, like a track of music, a picture, or a story like this one are not lost because some yahoo in a dorm room can download the stuff for free. It
says that there should be a means (even if it is nearly impossible to enforce) to see that the artists, photographers, and writers might get paid for their work. And that people who download and share music, photos, or copy and do not pay for it are pirates.

After the DOJ filed its brief, the senior vice president of business and legal affairs at the RIAA, Matthew Oppenheimer, said: "copyright owners have a clear and unambiguous entitlement to determine who is infringing their copyrights online, and that entitlement passes Constitutional muster." He warned that "Verizon's persistent efforts to protect copyright thieves ... will not succeed." Ok, that explains the FBI agent and the record executive in the dream. But what was I, a so called progressive journalist, doing drinking and carousing in the same company?

A while back I wrote a story trashing a conservative think tank. The story got picked up by the New York Times organization and published on their web site. Now if you want to read my immortal words of political wisdom, you can't get it for free. You have to pay the New York Times organization to download the copy. They get paid. I don't get a nickel. The argument is that I have "good exposure" by being in the New York Times, and I should be honored to participate. Any band that busted their ass to make music, and did not get paid for their work (but got good exposure) will understand how much I resent the fact of having my work pirated by the New York Times. So yeah, I think musicians, photographers, artists, and even hacks like me should get paid by pimply yahoos who download work in the middle of the night. Hey, if they can afford hot new computers, and broadband connections, they can damn well afford to pay us.

If I had a nickel for every time some yahoo downloaded a story written by me on the net, (go to Google and enter the "Mike Madias" in the search for the all
the copy) I could buy a pepperoni pizza, and a bottle of beer. But, I am a law abiding citizen and only smoke weed in my dreams. ***

Photo of Mike Madias courtesy of the author

A clinical sociologist living in the Metropolitan Detroit area, Mike's work has appeared in The Detroit News. He may be reached by e-mail at DetroitHardball@hotmail.com.