Yes, I'm on again about artists being properly compensated in the digital age, but this time I'm going to let the artists speak. You'll find two recent testimonials below.

The first is from Erin Enderlin, a Nashville singer and songwriter who was one of the protestors I witnessed outside the Supreme Court Tuesday. CNET's Declan McCullagh (my successor at CNET) took photos of the demonstration and posted them online. Several commenters posted derogatory remarks about the protestors, suggesting they were schills and not real musicians and adding that if they were they should intead give their music away on P2P. In particular, posters ridiculed a young woman shown with a very narrow guitar. "I am that girl and I AM a musician," Erin posted. She had this to say:

My name is Erin Enderlin and I would just to clarify that I am the girl in the picture holding a sign saying "Don't steal my future" and I make my living as an artist and songwriter in Nashville, TN. I was not "placed" at the Supreme Court, I simply came to give a human face to the matter at hand. This matter has very important implications on my career and the careers of many other creative people. The fact is real people are not being given money they have earned by working to produce create product; I do not believe that reflects the beliefs and principles that our nation was founded on and stands for today.

How was this eloquent statement treated? Here's what the next poster said: "You're not going to get very far playing that retarded looking guitar..."

Our second artist is Lee Totten, who has performed with Everclear, Third Eye Blind and Bare Naked Ladies. (He is the creative director of the digital media management company BubbleUp.) Anyone who reads John Paczkowski's "Good Morning Silicon Valley" -- a humorous and informative daily summary -- knows the author views the Grokster debate through the same prism as most of his peers in that part of the country, and that prism doesn't let through a lot of light from the content industry's perspective. Yesterday he wrote the key question in Grokster was how to preserve innovation. Today, however, Paczkowski acknowledged he received a lot of e-mail on this point and to his credit amended the question to this: "How do we preserve innovation and at the same time honor intellectual property rights?" Great question, one we ask every day at IPcentral.

Paczkowski's graciousness extended beyond that acknowledgement. He quoted from an e-mail from Totten, which I'll re-post here:

The issue before the court has less to do with P2P technology but rather more specifically with Grokster's application of P2P. Grokster has admitted that their business model for growth was based on promoting the illegal trading of copyrighted files. This reality is a far cry from the 'they're merely a technology provider' refrain championed by their advocates. True P2P would be untouchable, but the moment Napster or Grokster or Aimster started collecting ad revenues based on the visitors they attracted by promoting the fact that they could be used for illegal file sharing, they instantly lost the moral authority to claim that they're in it for the innovation. After all, it's one thing to sell someone a photocopier -- quite another to sell them using ads suggesting they'll never have to spend money purchasing books again. Grokster set up a P2P network with the specific purpose of generating revenue off of site traffic built on illegal file sharing -- let's at least be honest enough to call them the greedy accomplices that they are. If whatever ruling the court makes stifles innovation, Grokster, not the entertainment industry, should shoulder the blame.

These are the voices people need to be hearing. Thank you to CNET and SiliconValley.com for putting them out there.

posted by Patrick Ross @ 2:36 PM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines...

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