Digital music heavyweights gathered in Washington, D.C. to give testimony at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on downloading and file trading, but the two most controversial figures took over the event.
Tuesday's hearing marked the first time that Napster CEO Hank Barry and founder Shawn Fanning would publicly meet some of their main detractors, including Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, MP3.com CEO Michael Robertson, and Sony Music Entertainment New Technology President Fred Erlich.
The Senators coordinating the "Future of Digital Music" hearing were more interested in learning how music and technology can peacefully converge than in allowing the combative and often litigious companies to escalate and air their grievances.
"The committee will examine the intersection of these new technologies and the copyrights of music creators, and explore shared opportunities available to both the artists and technologists," said a written release about the hearing.
Each speaker was invited to represent his particular interest in the digital music era, but Barry and Fanning's presence quickly turned the proceedings into a debate on the merits and pitfalls of Napster.
Saying that his company's user base had swelled to 20 million, Barry reiterated his frequently stated point that like other advances in technology, Napster allows people to sample more music, which ultimately leads to more people buying CDs.
"Napster does not copy files," Barry said. "It does not provide the technology for copying files. Napster does not make MP3 files. It does not transfer files. Napster simply fascilitates communication among people interested in music. It is a return to the original information sharing approach of the Internet, allowing for a depth and scale of information that is truly revolutionary."
Napster's adversaries countered by talking up the importance of protecting songwriters and musicians while pushing forward with their business models.
"If the market is being driven more by perception than by the principles and rules that artists, consumers, government, industry, and professionals have set out, then effective governance no longer works and anarchy has taken over," Emusic.com CEO Gene Hoffman said.
Hoffman, whose company sells digital music, did not advocate government intervention, but he did recognize the need to control copyright in the digital music era. But he felt the different industries -- musicians, labels, and technologists would work together in ironing out the details of how to protect copyrights.
Robertson who has criticized Napster since his own battle with the major labels began, focused a bulk of his time demonstrating the my.mp3.com service that allows users to stream their personal music collection from a central server.
For all of the posturing, the arguments that took place might be moot in just a few months, said hearing observer Jonathan Potter, the executive director of the Digital Media Association.
"In time, perhaps less time than today's witnesses contemplate, DiMA anticipates that file-sharing technologies, like the VCR and cassette tapes and the wax records of our past, will be embraced by the two most important components of the music value chain -- creators and consumers."
In a welcome respite from talk of the legal wrangling which have engulfed the industry over the past months, Onehouse CEO Jim Griffin delivered a heartfelt plea to the committee.
While advocating the delivery of music that "feels" free to the consumers -- by creating service models which stream music on-demand in subscription and advertising supported models -- he also implored the committee to remember that this argument will set the benchmark for how other information will be delivered to consumers.
"Librarians schooled me in what could now be called the instruments of piracy," Griffin said. "The library was the first place that I saw a photocopy machine and a tape recorder. Use of these copying tools was openly encouraged..."
Griffin said that since the music industry is going to be developing the first business models that other electronic publishers will follow, the restrictions that are placed upon it need to be very carefully crafted.
"No one called us pirates… We were scholars."
According to Potter, committee chairman Orrin Hatch said that if record companies and music publishers don't reasonably license their music and make it available in various file formats, they would consider legislation to force the companies to license their music to all comers.
Hatch also invited Hilary Rosen, the president of the Recording Industry Association of America, to the witness table where he proceeded to question her regarding the fair use clause, which has been at the center of both the MP3.com and Napster defense in their respective lawsuits against the recording industry.
Hatch asked Rosen if several hypothetical situations, such as making an audiocassette of a CD to give to a spouse, constituted fair use.
Refusing to answer, she replied that Hatch was "leading me down the Napster path."
