[Infowarrior] - DMCA architect lambasts music moguls

[Richard Forno]

DMCA architect lambasts music moguls
It's your fault we're back to the Mozart era
By John Leyden → More by this author
Published Monday 26th March 2007 14:35 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/26/dmca_pants/

Bruce Lehman, key architect of the controversial Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA), has admitted that copyright protection law is failing.

The Clinton-era assistant secretary of commerce and commissioner of patents
and trademarks put most of the blame for the DMCA's shortcomings on the
recording industry.

He said music industry "moguls" failed to adapt and create an attractive
marketplace for music in the late 1990s. Recording industry execs had little
idea about technology development and were reluctant to embrace new
distribution technologies, Lehman argued.

Lehman made his comments during a panel discussion during a conference on
copyright in Montreal last week (extended video clip here).

During the presentation, he explained the DMCA was designed to create a
framework for copyright that brought existing laws up to date, protecting
intellectual property rights, in the expectation that hi-tech jobs would
become the mainstay of the US economy. Measures in the DMCA, which Lehman
acknowledged were controversial, made it an offence to circumvent
copyright-protection technology.

"Unfortunately, at least in some areas, our policies haven't worked out too
well and it's not for the want of trying," he said. "Our attempts at
copyright control have been unsuccessful. At least in terms of music, I
think we're entering a 'post-copyright era'."

Copyright was a good model for compensating artists, but music thrived
before modern copyright law, Lehman notes. He suggested new economic models
based more heavily on concert revenue, t-shirts sales, and other sources of
revenue need to be developed. Broadcasters like XM and Sirius might
"commission" songs, he added.

The film industry, unlike the music industry, didn't put out its works in
unencrypted form so it is in a better position to use technology in
protecting its work, according to Lehman. ®