Monday, October 27, 2003
File Sharing Ver 2.0
The New York Times is carrying a story on a beta technology being tested at MIT that might offer a new lease of life to file-sharing in an RIAA-afflicted world. The technology bypasses the Internet and instead uses a medium that has considerable less restrictive licensing -- analog cable. I wonder what the law says about using technology of this nature on public cable networks.
M.I.T. students, faculty and staff can choose from 16 channels of music and can schedule 80-minute blocks of time to control a channel. The high-tech D.J. can select, rewind or fast-forward the songs via an Internet-based control panel.
While listening to music through a television might seem odd, it is crucial to the M.I.T. plan. The quirk in the law that makes the system legal, Mr. Winstein said, has much to do with the difference between digital and analog technology. The advent of the digital age, with the possibility of perfect copies spread around the world with the click of a mouse, has spurred the entertainment industry to push for stronger restrictions on the distribution of digital works, and to be reluctant to license their recording catalogues to permit the distribution of music over the Internet.
The university, like many educational institutions, already has blanket licenses for the seemingly old-fashioned analog transmission of music from the organizations that represent the performance rights, including the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers or Ascap, the Broadcast Music Inc. or B.M.I., and Sesac, formerly the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers.
Thus far, the RIAA and the big music companies have had no comment about the MIT system. I am sure though we can depend on them to be paranoid and attempt to scuttle this system too, using legal tactics.
M.I.T. students, faculty and staff can choose from 16 channels of music and can schedule 80-minute blocks of time to control a channel. The high-tech D.J. can select, rewind or fast-forward the songs via an Internet-based control panel.
While listening to music through a television might seem odd, it is crucial to the M.I.T. plan. The quirk in the law that makes the system legal, Mr. Winstein said, has much to do with the difference between digital and analog technology. The advent of the digital age, with the possibility of perfect copies spread around the world with the click of a mouse, has spurred the entertainment industry to push for stronger restrictions on the distribution of digital works, and to be reluctant to license their recording catalogues to permit the distribution of music over the Internet.
The university, like many educational institutions, already has blanket licenses for the seemingly old-fashioned analog transmission of music from the organizations that represent the performance rights, including the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers or Ascap, the Broadcast Music Inc. or B.M.I., and Sesac, formerly the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers.
Thus far, the RIAA and the big music companies have had no comment about the MIT system. I am sure though we can depend on them to be paranoid and attempt to scuttle this system too, using legal tactics.
