Courtesy of Reuters...
Music Biz Putting Faith in New Lobbyist
Sun August 10, 2003 09:57 PM ET
By Keith Girard, Billboard Editor-in-Chief
NEW YORK (Billboard) - By now the recording industry shouldn't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing. It's hitting gale force at the industry and threatening to blow the house down.
That's why it was an astute move to pick Mitch Bainwol, 44, former chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to head the Recording Industry Assn. of America. And we're not just talking about his Republican credentials.
The industry could have gone with a show pony; instead, it picked a workhorse. And that's just what it needs right now. The next 15 months, leading up to the 2004 presidential election, will be a critical period not only for U.S. politics but also for the music business.
It has been struggling mightily for the past three years to combat music piracy, with little to show for it. Illegal downloading of copyrighted music is bigger than ever and only shows modest signs of abating in the face of the RIAA's recent legal onslaught.
The industry clearly needs a legislative solution, as well as a market solution to rein in the music thieves. It could well have the latter by the end of the year, when Apple and others unveil their download services for Windows-based consumers. But it will be up to Bainwol to deliver the legislative answer, and that will be no easy task.
The problem is the RIAA's sue-the-pants-off-them strategy to stamp out piracy. It wouldn't be so bad if the industry were targeting real criminals. But there is every possibility that hundreds of people who are ultimately snared in its dragnet will be ordinary consumers.
The fact is that the overwhelming majority of illegal downloaders probably range in age from their early teens to their mid-20s. You can bet they are largely well-educated kids from the suburbs with fancy computers and expensive broadband Internet connections. There are tens of millions of them, and you can also bet that they, or their parents, vote.
Now you can see how the RIAA's campaign has all the makings of political dynamite.
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, is the first Republican to raise concerns about the controversial campaign and intends to hold a hearing next month to get the details.
"It raised a concern," Coleman told Billboard. "On the one hand, I recognize the legitimacy of the interests of record companies, but I am worried about the response -- does the punishment fit the crime?"
Although Coleman's concerns hardly suggest the makings of a GOP backlash, one could easily develop. Just wait until the first soccer mom goes on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to tell how the RIAA sued little Johnny and took his college fund to prove a point about illegal downloading.
Would the industry be within its rights to do so? You bet. But guess where the public's sympathy will lie. Now guess what any pol running for re-election in a tough race will do. The GOP ticked off soccer moms once before and got eight years of Bill Clinton. It's unlikely they'll make the same mistake again.
Reuters/Billboard
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