What kind of generation doesn't stick it to the Man, but to Taylor Swift instead?

Rate setting

Q You’ve also made the argument that these particular consent decrees actually create inefficiencies in the market due to the rate court involvement with price setting, right?

Lowery: How much did Pandora save by suing ASCAP (in a ruling that eventually left the rate unchanged) in rate court? Less than $10m right? How much did that lawsuit cost the tax payers? ASCAP and songwriters? And Pandora stockholders? Way more than $10m? That, right there, is a legal argument that the consent decrees are misapplied. They are inefficient and cost society more than they save. Fail.

Q Have you given any thought to a solution? Artists complaining of the status quo under the The Man 2.0 are often criticized because you don’t solve the problem for them.

Lowery: There’s a rather out-of-fashion theory about how public policy evolves. I happen to think it’s still quite accurate. It’s called “Punctuated Equilibrium Framework”. The idea is that you reach this equilibrium where a sort of policy monopoly is formed. The policy monopoly consists of an ossified class of legislators, committees, technocrats, policy experts, lobbyists, trade groups, academics and even clergy. They all have different interests and power calculations that lock them into a policy monopoly. The consent decree, DMCA-enabled piracy and abusive compulsory licenses are the policy equilibrium.

I won’t name names but we all know the members of the current Washington policy monopoly. The “punctuation” is when policy suddenly and abruptly changes. In order for a punctuation to occur a “change of venue” must be effected. In this theory the change of venue ranges from armed rebellion and civil unrest, to civil court cases.

We need a “change of venue.” I believe the Turtles have shown us the way in their victorious lawsuit against SiriusXM over Sirius stiffing pre-1972 artists on performance royalties. Except this time we need to sue our own government. Instead of complaining, artists need to get off their backsides and sue the people who locked us into the unfair “equilibrium.”

These excerpts are from an interview by Chris Castle, first published at Music Tech Policy. ®

Boot(legged) note

* Google did recently change its search engine parameters, with users directed towards legal download sites (as long as those sites have paid for a more prominent placement), and away from pirate ones. It also recently updated its “How Google Fights Piracy” document, which can be found here.