Did We Miss Our Best Chance At Regulating The Internet?
from the the-internet-has-changed dept
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In 2010 I was in a leadership role on the data science team at Grooveshark.com. These were the pre-Spotify days, and we were trying to transition customers away from elicit downloads to music streaming. Using the YouTube user-generated content model made a lot of sense. We theorized that if YouTube could democratize the distribution of video, allowing creators from all over the world to distribute their art on a speedy, frictionless platform, it only made sense that we could do the same for music.
On the information products team, our goal was twofold. First, we aimed to discover trending, unknown artists worldwide and serve them up to record labels hungry for new talent.
The second goal was to act as a connector between bands and brands so that artists and labels losing revenue could develop a brand-new channel for monetization. Eventually, we would be able to create affinity profiles on consumers across the globe. That’s something we bragged about back then. Now there’s a bit of shame associated with that type of information collection and rightly so.
While indies were quick to license Grooveshark, major labels did not want to give up their gatekeeper status. We signed deals where we could and took down unlicensed music when notified, frequently beating YouTube’s response time. The majors didn’t want the royalties. They wanted to make sure that any artist with a new or innovative sound had to come up through their farm league.
Lawsuits weren’t new to Grooveshark. We’d been sued a handful of times in state or federal courts. Often, they were disposed of in summary judgments or settled, turning into the licensing deals that we had been asking for all along.
But in November of 2011, Universal Music Group, along with Sony, Warner, and nine other labels, filed a lawsuit against the company and the employees themselves, including me and two junior employees. Generally, employees, especially non-founder, non-participating employees like us, would never be liable for the actions of their employer.
Still, because this was copyright infringement, the majors tried to pierce the corporate veil. They accused us of a combined $17 billion worth of copyright infringement. If found liable, I would have been on the hook for some $900 million that could not be discharged in bankruptcy and would be garnished from my earnings for the rest of my life.
It was a transparent attempt at intimidating new employees and discouraging prospective employees from accepting a job at Grooveshark or any other fledgling tech company hoping to innovate in the music space. The majors had successfully shut down some 20+ startups before us, but we were well funded, growing quickly, and loved by our 20+ million users. Under the leadership of founders Sam Tarantino and the late Josh Greenberg, Grooveshark had survived every attempt previously made.
I remain convinced that I was a party to that lawsuit for one reason and one reason only: I was going to be called as a witness in the House IP subcommittee’s second “Sites & Parasites” hearing. I would have testified to the evidence that major labels were feeding erroneous information to DMCA takedown systems and using the court system to structure settlements that would line label coffers but whose proceeds would never make their way to the artists.
Thus, they prioritized lawsuits over licensing deals. Knowing that no lawyer worth their weight in salt would volunteer a client for a testimony who is a party to a suit like that, I was served just as we negotiated my appearance before the committee.
In the “Sites & Parasites” hearings, representatives from legacy media angled to pass the conveniently titled Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate sister bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). These bills would have given them a virtual veto on any tech platform that allowed users to upload their own content.
Speeches, news articles, music, video, and even user comment sections were well within the boundaries of this legislation. The legacy content industries believed that this was their chance to constrain the Internet. So, they fought like it was existential. For Grooveshark, it was existential. Had the legislation been enacted, Grooveshark would have ceased to exist immediately.
Though we were early into the fray, Grooveshark was only a minor player in the organizing efforts. The RIAA and MPAA were eventually thwarted when Internet creators, activists, and users alike organized to defend themselves, voluntarily blacking out some of the most significant websites on the Internet, and sending so many emails to congressional accounts that it resulted in the first email server outage in congressional history.
Soon after that, SOPA and PIPA were shelved, Spotify sold a portion of itself to the major labels, and we entered a period of detente.
Though it took two more years, that lawsuit did end up taking Grooveshark down. $150,000 per month in legal bills will bleed a startup dry, and having big enemies doesn’t inspire the fundraising they’d need to keep the venture growing. I resigned from my position in 2012, and the case against me was settled shortly after.
Some may argue that this was the preferable outcome. Major labels now embrace streaming. For better or worse, they participate in the profits of artist merchandise sales, live performance, and other exotic licensing opportunities. I’ve harbored a decade-long resentment against Spotify, but even I can’t argue with the amount of access to new and diverse music that my subscription delivers.
As I look back on all the startups that were cut down, the capital squandered, and the artists whose window for global exposure narrowed to just a handful of labels again, I find myself wondering: what did we accomplish in killing SOPA and PIPA?
We thwarted a bill that would have resulted in the most powerful legacy industries on the planet securing a veto on any new web 2.0 technology. We made the Internet safe for entrepreneurs. We protected the innovation sandbox that was the safe harbors, and we helped create hundreds of billions of dollars in new business opportunities and the jobs that went along with them.
We ensured that the Internet would remain a haven for free speech, popular or not, for another generation.
Still, I can’t help myself from wondering: could we have created a system that allowed for sensible regulation, thus pre-empting the maleficence of today’s internet behemoths? Was that our chance? Was that even within the deal space?
The negotiators from tech were not organized for a fight such as the one brought to their doorstep in 2010. You can draw a straight line from SOPA to the well-armed giants of tech now, thwarting regulation of any kind, sensible or not. That was their wake up call, and wake up they did.
Now the Internet companies are the monied gatekeepers and we are further away from sensible regulation than ever before. Recent disclosures from Facebook insiders suggest that polarizing the body politic is not just about clicks. It’s also a legislative strategy. The more polarized our legislative bodies, the less likely they will be to agree on any reform. Still, if I have to choose a side again today, I would not choose the side of censorship.
The Internet remains our best weapon in the fight against tyranny and the suppression of ideas. When they ban books in Texas schools, enterprising students will find them online. When they close polling locations in under-represented neighborhoods, the Internet will organize carpools. When governments silence public figures and force them into hiding for exposing high-ranking officials, the Internet will carry her message across the globe.
The Internet does not solve any of these problems. It is merely a tool. Each of us decides if we will use it to divide or unite. Though there may be a price to pay for free speech, the price is far greater if forced to go without it.
Paul Geller is the founder of Channelshift
This Techdirt Greenhouse special edition is all about the 10 year anniversary of the fight that stopped SOPA. On January 26th at 1pm PT, we’ll be hosting a live discussion with Rep. Zoe Lofgren and some open roundtable discussions about the legacy of that fight. Please register to attend.
Filed Under: copyright, interent, intimidation, lawsuits, pipa, regulations, sopa
Companies: grooveshark
Comments on “Did We Miss Our Best Chance At Regulating The Internet?”
the best thing
would be a standard created from all the countries. Beyond that point only minor differences of regulations.
The internet IS’ the biggest way to see that People are Strange. The real problem is trying to control the internet, because reality is even worse.
I don’t think so. Not as part of the SOPA debate.
Now, if the courts had gone through with breaking up Microsoft a decade earlier? That might have done it. Instead they got a slap on the wrist and we got twenty more years of corporate megamergers.
Re: Re:
Big thing in your comment.
Slap on wrist.
Isnt it fun that when many laws were made $1 was allot of money?
Can we do this on a % base of yearly profits?
It Could pay the Nations taxes very quickly.
Re:
Not now but maybe one day Microsoft, google Elon Musk or any other personal/organization can handle this.
I didn’t know that downloads could extract or elicit anything, although I am familiar with the idea that the MAFIaa thinks all downloads are illicit.
So let me get this straight – you wanted to take individual musicians that were presumably unknowlegable in the ways of Hollywood Accounting, and throw them into the lion’s den, is that about right? GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!
Either you were truly out of your mind at the time, or you were in cahoots with the Hollywood bastids, acting as shills for them. I don’t care which was the case, here’s a mallet and a funnel, now go pound sand!
And I did read the entire article. As to "maybe we’d have better regulation today, than what we currently have", that’s not even laughable. My advice to you is, grow up, spend some time in the field with us peons. When you’ve got about 20 more years of experience, then call on us again.
tl:dr:
Bah! Humbug!
Re: Re:
I spent 6 years as as touring artist in the 90s, then six years as an engineer/producer (which is how we do it in the punk scene), and another decade as a producer /dj. I put my time in as an artist as did many other Grooveshark employees. Lest you think we were shills, Sony Music sued me for $900 million of that $17B, WHILE SONY RED OWNED THE DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS TO MY RECORDS.
Re: Re:
Used to be, that any nations music wasnt Protected outside of the region.
REGION CODES, we got them.
But now for some odd reason, countries that Didnt give a Flying Fickle, are being sponsored by RIAA/MPAA. And we cant show Those out of country goods in the USA without license.
Start of Featured Discussion
Maybe China has it right
Wall off country to outsiders
No more whining. People have their
own exclusive networks that they do what they want on
unless they want to sell something.
Hell no
Trusting them to pass good regulation is like trusting the fox to guard the henhouse.
Section 230 needs to be repealed urgently to protect the public from online abuse
It’s time the Supreme Court guts Section 230 as it is long overdue. Hopefully they do it this year.
Nobody likes Section 230. Internet needs safety guard-rails to regulate against cyber-stalking, doxing, and revenge porn and other privacy violations.
Section 230 currently protects a clutch to internet companies who ignore harmful content. So the liability shield should be removed to hold tech companies accountable for hosting and displaying doxxing content.
Basic common sense. Get rid of Section 230, no matter how much lies and misinformation the tech lobby groups spew.
Regulate the internet? Never
You mean, where I have no 4th amendment and ISPs have to bow down to Copyright trolls monitoring every download from torrents, identifying users, and extorting them for hundreds and even thousands to millions of dollars? Do you mean that kind of regulation? No thanks!
I’d rather see the copyright agencies go bankrupt and my ISP provide encryption on all connections and never identify anyone to any such agency, while respecting individual privacy at all times, telling all govt agencies to go elf themselves.