RIAA DENIES SEEKING FILE-SHARING FEES FROM ISPs
RIAA denied Tues. its chmn. had proposed charging ISPs fee for file-sharing and demanded correction from Reuters, which Assn. said originated widely reported account. RIAA Chmn. Hilary Rosen spoke Sat. at MIDEM music conference in Cannes, France.
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Reuters article paraphrased “a top music executive” as saying “telecommunications companies and Internet service providers (ISPs) will be asked to pay up for giving their customers access to free song-swapping sites.” Article said: “Rosen suggested one possible scenario for recouping lost sales from online piracy would be to impose a type of fee on ISPs that could be passed on to their customers who frequent these file- swapping sites.” Story was picked up by outlets worldwide, from CNN to Times of India.
“Nobody in that room thought that that’s what I said,” Rosen said in interview. Via e-mail Tues., RIAA requested correction: “What she did say, during the Q&A session after the speech, was, when asked about our case with Verizon, Rosen replied that she is disappointed with their response thus far and urged the creative community to hold them more ‘accountable.’ She was then asked about compulsory licensing. She stated that the industry is not there but understood the simplistic attraction to it. Rosen clearly stated that compulsory licensing is not a good idea.” RIAA won U.S. Dist. Court order Tues. in its long-running effort to force Verizon to identify subscriber alleged to have infringed on 600 song copyrights in single day through downloads.
Reuters said it couldn’t respond immediately. “This situation was just brought to our attention a couple of hours ago obviously, and we're trying to reach someone in France and a different time zone,” said senior communications executive Nancy Bobrowitz. RIAA posted Rosen’s speech on its Web site Tues. but hadn’t issued news release by our deadline. “Of course, it’s a hassle,” Rosen said of dealing with impact of Reuters article. She said that and other errors in story suggested problem stemmed from wire reporter’s inadequate understanding of issues, perhaps because of language issues.
Trading off its unconditional opposition to unauthorized song-sharing for fee in compulsory-licensing scheme would constitute imposition on providers but also significant softening in position of RIAA, heavyweight in digital copyright wars. It could have major ramifications for video copying and rest of content-protection debate. Plausibility of such position shift might have been increased by big splash RIAA made just days before Cannes speech by agreeing with computer companies to drop its support of additional congressional legislation mandating copy protections in exchange for their forgoing Capitol Hill efforts to codify “fair use” protections. Conversely, inasmuch as high-tech deal made major point of preferring private solutions, it would be inconsistent in principle with govt.- enforced compulsory licensing.
Rosen said in interview when she called for content owners to hold ISPs accountable that she meant only by calling them to account, rather than through additional litigation or legislation. “This is merely in the rhetorical area,” she said.