Fighting for digital rights

The little white boxes popping out of students’ messenger
bags and backpacks, keeping them company between classes and at the
gym, prove that the iPod has revolutionized music as we know it.
But the fight over digital music is far from over.

On Jan. 2, a lawsuit was filed accusing Apple of creating a
monopoly by making files purchased on iTunes playable only on
iPods, a claim which comes on the heels of similar lawsuits
recently filed against Apple in Europe.

An earlier blow came in November 2006 when Jon Johanson, an
infamous computer hacker known by the alias “DVDJon,”
broke the code on iTunes that enforced a five-person limit on
sharing music.

Lurking underneath these issues is a troubling question: If
consumers cannot do with legally purchased digital files what they
can with a purchased CD, such as make copies or transfer them to
other devices, to what extent do they really own those digital
files?

“Anytime a company bundles hardware and software, their
public aim is to create a better product,” said Adam Farrell,
head of new media at the Beggars Group, a record label collective
that includes indie powerhouses Matador and 4AD. “In the case
of Apple, their stuff works great. It’s really a seamless
experience between hardware and software. The problem with it is
the lack of portability (of the files) and the fact that you never
truly own the music. … I think DRM is a relatively stifling thing
for selling music online.”

Apple uses a form of DRM, or Digital Rights Management, which
are the technologies used to control copyrighted material, to
impose these restrictions of ownership.

But the code was originally designed to appease major record
labels such as Universal and Sony BMG, who in nearly all cases
refuse to sell their music to online retailers who do not ensure
such protection built into the files.

In response to these limits, consumers still download files
illegally to escape such restrictions and acquire a level of
control over their music that is missing from legal downloads.

“I think any restrictions on listening to music are
stupid,” said Claire Douglas, a third-year women’s
studies student. “In general, I think it’s a great
technological revolution that we can have so much music at our
fingers. … Stealing music has done a lot for me.”

A way Matador Records has attempted to get back those customers
has been by extensively promoting live performances of its artists
and using online music blogs in its marketing strategies ““
and, to an extent, supporting digital ownership.

“We were having issues with bloggers posting tracks (that
were) not official promos or posting full albums,” Farrell
said. “(But) we are willing to see the good an MP3 blog can
do for us and then help support them and treat them like
they’re part of a PR machine of ours.”

Matador has also invested in enhancing certain CD packages and
including extras such as a vinyl accompaniment or recordings of
live shows.

Without an extensive effort put forth to enhance the CD package,
however, Farrell predicts that the CD will become a “dead
medium,” leaving only vinyl and digital forms of music in its
wake.

The shift to digital music has proven fortuitous for Janis Ian,
a Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter who made MP3s of select
songs available for free on her Web site in the mid-’90s.

Also a freelance journalist, Ian published the incendiary
“The Internet Debacle” for Performing Songwriter
Magazine in 2002.

The article outlines the problems plaguing the music industry,
which despite label claims to the contrary, go well beyond illegal
downloading.

“Free exposure is practically a thing of the past for
entertainers,” Ian wrote. “Free downloading gives a
chance to every do-it-yourselfer out there. Every act that
can’t get signed to a major, for whatever reason, can reach
literally millions of new listeners, enticing them to buy the CD
and come to the concerts.”

Within a month of its publication, the article had been posted
on 1,000 other Web sites, translated into nine different languages,
and featured in various international press outlets including the
BBC and USA Today.

More importantly, Ian’s merchandise sales increased 25
percent after posting the article and 300 percent after making her
music available for download, severely challenging the belief that
free, non-DRM music is harmful to the music industry.

“A really good friend of mine gave me (a Soul Wise) song
and we listened to it over and over again,” Douglas said.
“I got into their other music and then we went to their show
at the House of Blues.”

Douglas’ situation reflects a long-held tradition in
finding new music: hearing about it from friends and then
supporting the band yourself.

The Internet has taken this to a new level. So-called
“blog bands” have exploded in recent years, with acts
ranging from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah to Lily Allen winning fans by
spreading their songs through MySpace and their own sites and
interacting directly with fans.

U.K. sensation Arctic Monkeys made headlines by putting its
demos on file-sharing networks, where listeners passed them around
and built word-of-mouth.

Upon its release, the band’s album “Whatever People
Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not” became the
fastest-selling debut in U.K. chart history.

Despite the success of both Ian and a new generation of
independent musicians in using DRM-free digital files to gain
exposure and boost sales, the major labels’ anxiety about
giving consumers more liberal digital ownership has not been
quelled.

UCLA has responded to illegal downloading with the Get Legal
program, which encourages students to use iTunes, Cdigix and
Mindawn, all programs which have agreed to channel a portion of the
profits gained from Get Legal subscribers to UCLA organizations.
Thus far, however, the program’s results have been
disheartening.

“I’m a little bit disappointed from the standpoint
that we haven’t generated much more traffic for iTunes sales
from our Web site,” said Jon Curtiss, the manager of
technological development for UCLA student and campus affairs.
“(But) we are encouraged about the Ctrax traffic.”

While Get Legal has slightly curtailed the number of UCLA
students downloading media unlawfully, it has yet to change some
students’ mentality regarding digital theft.

“A lot of students don’t seem to be making the
rational physical connection between stealing something in the real
world and then in the online world and thinking there are few
consequences in doing so,” Curtiss said. “They just
don’t seem to be equating the two ““ going to the
student store and stealing a book and then stealing a movie
online.”

This breach in logic hearkens back to the original question of
whether consumers have enough of an incentive to purchase their
digital files, considering their proprietary rights are so
limited.

In November 2006, Microsoft entered the digital field with the
Zune, its answer to the iPod.

However, its sales didn’t even come close to Apple’s
player, peaking on Amazon’s Top 100 sales list at No. 8 for
electronics and then disappearing from it completely within
weeks.

Part of the Zune’s troubles can be attributed to its
system of sharing and purchasing music, which is even more closed
than the iPod.

The Zune’s marketing slogans heavily publicize the ability
users have to digitally share songs between one another by
wirelessly transmitting files between the devices.

What the ads fail to mention, however, is that once files are
transferred, they can only be listened to three times or are
deleted after three days ““ whichever comes first.

Beyond that, songs purchased from the popular iTunes music store
aren’t compatible with the Microsoft device.

The Zune’s failure to find an audience would appear to
serve as a testament to consumers’ demands for flexibility in
digital media.

But even with these ownership problems unresolved, another
challenge has arisen.

Analysts responded to a recent Nielson SoundScan report last
week, which documented the industry’s sales for 2006,
predicting that the digital music industry’s success has
plateaued due

to the lack of novelty surrounding the iPod, as well as the
indus-

try’s inadequate response to piracy.

Farrell thinks the industry will react by experimenting with
licensing its MP3s to an array of sources, not just iTunes or sites
with similarly constrained DRM codes, which could possibly expand
consumers’ rights over their music.

“There are other business models afoot that a record label
can use to take advantage of this age of information that we live
in,” Farrell said. “But the music industry is pretty
slow to adopt (them).”