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July 6th, 2020 at 2:32 pm
“Blanket Licensing” – a Collectivist, Bureaucratic, One-Size-Fits-All Deprivation of Property Rights Proposal
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America’s legacy of unparalleled copyright protections and free market orientation has cultivated a music industry unrivaled in today’s world or throughout human history.

From the first days of the phonograph, through the jazz age, through the rock era, through disco, through country, through hip-hop and every other popular musical iteration since its advent, it’s not by accident that we lead the world in the same manner in which we lead in such industries as cinema and television programming.  We can thank our nation’s emphasis on strong copyright protections.

Unfortunately, that reality doesn’t deter some activists from periodically advocating a more collectivist, top-down governmental reordering of the music industry in a way that would deprive artists and creators of their property rights.  Some advocates simply will not relent in their unceasing and misguided campaign to undermine copyright protections that have provided the wellspring for U.S. musical preeminence.  They seek to replace strong copyright protections and the freedom of market participants to mutually negotiate, ultimately to consumers’ obvious benefit, and replace them with a government-determined rate and a one-size-fits-all bureaucratic approach that eliminates market participants’ autonomy.

As just the latest example, British activist Cory Doctorow of the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) now proposes a “blanket licensing” idea under which anyone wishing to offer music to pubic audiences would be required to open an account with a collecting society.  His heavily bureaucratic proposal would curtail the ability of copyright owners to negotiate royalties as they see fit with internet music platforms.

In an era of endless musical genres and methods to access them according to one’s preference, how does imposing such a collectivist, centralized, one-size-fits-all regime make sense?

The obvious answer is that it doesn’t.

Doctorow’s proposal betrays a fundamental flaw by misconceptualizing the nature of copyright itself by misstating “copyright’s real purpose:  spurring creativity and innovation.”

While Doctorow can be forgiven for his unfamiliarity with American constitutional principles, and while the utilitarian goal of creativity and innovation is indeed a primary feature of copyright and other intellectual property (IP) protections, that’s an inaccurate and incomplete statement of its “real purpose.”  Rather, copyright through common law and American constitutional history is valued as a natural property right of the creator, as we at CFIF articulated in our policy manual entitled ”The Constitutional and Historical Foundations of Copyright Protection”:

The Copyright Clause in the U.S. Constitution and the pre-existing rights it secures both arose from a long intellectual and historical tradition that reflected both the importance of economic incentives (the utilitarian argument) and the notion that individuals have an inherent and inviolable right to the fruits of their own labor.  As the Supreme Court has explained, ‘[t]he economic philosophy behind the clause empowering Congress to grant patents and copyrights’ is the conviction that:  ‘(1) encouragement of individual effort by personal gain is the best way to advance public welfare through the talents of authors and inventors in “Science and the useful Arts”’ and (2) ‘[s]acrificial days devoted to such creative activities deserve rewards commensurate with the services rendered.’  Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201, 219 (1954).  Another early decision emphasized that only through copyright protection ‘can we protect intellectual property, the labors of the mind, productions and interests as much a man’s own, and as much the fruit of his honest industry, as the wheat he cultivates or the flocks he rears.’  Davoll v. Brown, 7 F.Cas. 197, 199 (D. Mass. 1845).

Accordingly, Doctorow’s proposal violates the central concept that copyright holders possess a natural right to their creations.  Even ignoring the natural right foundation of copyright, however, no other system of copyright protection has resulted in greater utility than our own, given America’s uniquely prolific music industry as noted above.

In addition to violating the fundamental rights of copyright owners to mutually bargain with music platforms, Seth Cooper of the Free State Foundation cogently summarizes how EFF’s proposal doesn’t accord with the obvious realities of today’s music marketplace:

[T]he EFF plan sidesteps the fact that there are several major Internet music service providers and numerous smaller providers.  Popular interactive (or ‘on-demand’) streaming music providers include Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Google Play Music.  Popular webcasters include Pandora, iHeartRadio, and Deezer.  And there are many others.  SoundExchange reported that some 3,600 webcasting services were operating in 2019.

Importantly, consumer choices also include nationwide satellite radio broadcaster Sirius XM and local AM/FM radio broadcasters.  Indeed, radio broadcasts are widely available through apps on smartphones and other devices.  Additional choices include digital downloads from major Internet music service providers as well as independent and individual artist websites.  CDs and vinyl records are also available at retail.

Given the number of competitors and platform choices, it is highly unlikely that Internet music services possess market power – or the ability to charge consumers above-market prices and otherwise engage in anti-competitive conduct.  There’s no showing of market power here and so the case for government intervention falls apart.” 

Accordingly, the EFF proposal contravenes fundamental concepts of copyright protections, it proposes to reorder a music marketplace that continues to function well for all of its stakeholders and it clashes with contemporary market realities.

We currently enjoy a functional market with innumerable market participants, and copyright owners across the spectrum possess the freedom to negotiate with a wide variety of potential distributors.  EFF’s proposal nevertheless aims to strip creators of the property rights they currently enjoy without justification.  The market simply isn’t broken.  Supporters of EFF’s proposal curiously assert that today’s market is corrupted by monopolies, but as Mr. Cooper sets forth nicely above, a broad global spectrum of potential avenues exist for consumers to freely access as they prefer.

Accordingly, the notion that we should upend a market in which consumers can access an ever-greater variety of music at low cost is an untenable one.

A better option would be for Congress to expand copyright holders’ protections to the sphere of terrestrial radio via the Ask Musicians for Music Act (AMFM Act), to extend what we know works, rather than foolishly venture into demonstrably defective novel proposals.