Lawmakers Praise Napster for File Sharing Innovation in 2000

Posted on 07. Aug, 2009 by refe in MUSIC INDUSTRY, NEWS

This little gem appeared today on the blog of Charles Nesson, the attorney representing Joel Tenenbaum in his recent bout with the RIAA. In a letter addressed to Nesson, Robert John Smith of the Louisiana Capital Appeals Project makes the argument that the laws used by the RIAA against Joel Tenenbaum were never intended to cover the sharing of music files over peer to peer networks. In it he transcribes large sections of an October 9, 2000, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Provo, Utah called “Utah’s Digital Economy and the Future: Peer-To-Peer and Other Emerging Technologies.” The hearing featured then 19-year old Napster creator Shawn Fanning, and offers an often surprising look at the way file sharing was viewed by policy makers when it first arrived on the scene.

Senator Orin Hatch (pictured above) introduced Fanning to the rest of the committee and a group of students who were present. The Senator seemed to have no shortage of praise for him and the Napster platform itself:

“It’s this peer-to-peer technology approach that basically has formulated opportunities for people like never before. And we’re moving more and more into peer-to-peer technology; and when you look at Gnutella, which doesn’t even need a server, it’s a slow system, but nevertheless someday somebody is going to break through on that. Napster was the reason I think we’ve been able to even move in that direction. So let’s turn to Shawn Fanning, who at 18 years of age developed this application and this process, and deserves an awful lot of credit. We’re very proud of him, and he’s been with us back in Washington and agreed to come to Utah especially today just to chat with us a little bit about what his perspectives are. And if some of you young students would like to come up and sit on the floor up here, for those of you who are standing, we would be glad to have you come up here and surround this place, and we’ll turn the time over to Shawn Fanning at this point.”

Smith notes that ”it is important here to remember that Napster was not selling licensed songs at this point. People were uploading and downloading their music, and Naspter provided the platform and indexing. In other words, Hatch is praising the very activity that costs Joel $675,000.”

Smith again quotes Senator Hatch as he goes on to quite accurately describe to potential benefits of peer to peer networks for both personal communication and business:

“Peer-to-peer means that everyone’s home computer becomes like a server, so that rather than many customers browsing through the content stored on large servers, individuals search for information or entertainment on each other’s computers. This technology could reduce costs for individuals who want to be their own publisher. It allows for more up-to-date information to be more quickly searchable, and could make more efficient use of computing power. It could further connect us to each other.”

According to Smith, “Fanning went on to explain exactly how Napster works, how as of then they were not paying artist royalties, how wide the practice of sharing music files had becomes (among both children and their parents), how the technology can benefit independent artists, how music sampling can lead to increased revenues for artists and the industry, etc. Shawn even downloaded a song from Napster for Hatch and the Audience to listen to during the hearing.”

It’s incredible how far we’ve come in the decade since that hearing took place. In the wrong direction, unfortunately. It seems that policy makers had a much better understanding in 2000 of the potential that platforms such as Napster provided for progress in not only the music industry, but in other sectors as well.

Am I wrong in thinking that we’ve gone backward in our views of copyright and file sharing since the beginning of this millenium? Leave your comments and let me know what you think.

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