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OPEN LETTER TO THE PRS - page two October 20 2000 pages 1 2 These downloaders are passionate lovers of music across the board and a future audience for our composers and performers. They are gathered in the kind of numbers that major record labels would kill for, both in terms of their digital downloads and their physical record sales. While the majors procrastinate over various doomed secure music schemes (SDMI, those expensive pay-per-download strategies), the public has already voted with its feet. And yet instead of listening to their loudly-stated needs, we label these Napster fans pirates while denying them a legitimate means of expressing their patronage. I am of course appreciative of and grateful for the service the PRS provides on behalf of songwriters such as myself. But it must be said that rights organisations, like the major labels, have been slow to embrace the potential of Internet technology and have only belatedly geared up to provide the backbone needed to collect payments for so-called Internet music use. As one of the younger PRS members I represent a new generation of musicians that supports Napster and uses it both to find music and to promote my own work. I believe that the huge benefits of Napster-like technology vastly outweigh any perceived harm. American Presidential candidate Al Gore rightly comments at WebWhiteandBlue.org that "Years ago when radio was invented there was a huge controversy. How in the world are songwriters ever going to get protected when the songs are just broadcast over the radio?... Now, artists are compensated every time a song is played on the radio... I think we need to keep working on a compromise that allows Napster-type technologies to flourish but does not take away the artist's intellectual property." It is our duty not to rebuff Napster or gloat as does Alistair Davies over its "rude awakening" but to offer the company an olive branch with some haste. No matter how long we pontificate about the sanctity of copyright, these music-sharing technologies are not going away. What we can do is institute an official, workable "celestial jukebox" system like Napster which would at least remove the incentive for the majority of people to source their music illegitimately. Napster CEO Hank Barry has already expressed his desire to work with rights owners to ensure that they can be properly compensated for their work and that is what he must do. But, as members of the PRS, we also have a responsibility: to conquer our Luddite fears of the unknown and quickly find a compromise that will ensure both the survival of Napster and its due renumeration to artists and composers. back to page one... comment on this article e-mail this to a friend start a discussion 
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