[DMCA-Activists] Oxford Union P2P Music Sharing Debate

[Seth Johnson]

(Forwarded from Boing Boing Blog.  Website text pasted
below.  -- Seth)

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 13:06:05 -0700
From: "Cory Doctorow" <address@hidden>
  To: address@hidden


Hilary Rosen and others held a debate on downloading music
last night at Oxford University. This first-person account
is very tasty.

* Hilary Rosen asks "Put up your hand if you download and
burn music" (most hands go up).  She then asks "Keep you
hand up if you buy more music because of it" (many stay up).
She gets worried and immediately asks some different and
confusing set of people to put their hands up, causing
everyone to look miffed, and everyone putting their hand
down)

* One of the proposition giving figures on the Linkin Park
album (sales, downloads etc), the leader of the opposition
saying he'd personally downloaded it and then gone out and
bought it, asking for the figures of how many people who'd
downloaded it had bought it, and being told "I have no
figures, and nor do you" by the proposition, nicely ignoring
the fact that they both then had a figure showing that 100%
of people surveyed there who'd downloaded had also bought...

Link: http://tirian.magd.ox.ac.uk/~nick/UnionDebate/
Discuss: http://www.quicktopic.com/boing/H/KS5cRa5dagzTw

--
Posted by Cory Doctorow to Boing Boing Blog at 10/25/2002
1:00:16 PM

----

> http://tirian.magd.ox.ac.uk/~nick/UnionDebate/

Proposition: "This House believes that 'the free music
mentality' is a threat to the future of music."

This was a debate held at the Oxford Union on Thursday 24th
October. For the speakers, see the debate page.

Final vote was:
Ayes - 72
Noes - 256 


Under the watchful eye of Dave Green from NTK, several of us
met up in the Lamb & Flag before the debate, and trooped in
together. Impressively, we had about as many members as non,
so getting everyone in wasn't nearly as tough as we'd
expected it to be. Since we arrived about 8pm, we sat
through a rather confusing debate, where it seemed that
neither the (very quiet) chair or the speakers quite knew
which side they were arguing for... Then, about 8:40 the
speakers for the main debate wandered in. 

The proposition had Nick Pacheco (Christchurch College),
Hilary Rosen (RIAA), Chris Wright (Chrysalls) and Jay Berman
(IFPI). The opposition had Will Harris (Keble College), Nick
King (Nielsen Entertainment), Doug D'Arcy (Chrysalls) and
Ronnie Gurr (various). (A few union members also spoke for
both sides during the floor debate.) 

I won't endeavour to recount the entire debate, just some of
my thoughts on it and what I thought were some of the
highlights. The Union made a video recording of the entire
thing, which may or may not eventually get put online (you
could try asking the Union President, David Watson about it,
I suspect the more requests they get the more like it is to
get online). Dave Green also made a tape recording of the
event, that will probably make it online soonish, provided
the quality is good enough. 



So, some of the more memorable bits included:

Hilary Rosen saying "Actually, no copy protected CDs have
been released in the US" ( really? really?) 

Hilary Rosen asks "Put up your hand if you download and burn
music" (most hands go up). She then asks "Keep you hand up
if you buy more music because of it" (many stay up). She
gets worried and immediately asks some different and
confusing set of people to put their hands up, causing
everyone to look miffed, and everyone putting their hand
down) 

Hilary Rosen nodding like a pigeon for most of the time 

Every opposition speaker getting at least one in-promptu
applause during their speeches, only one proposition speaker
getting one (and that was for taking the piss out of a union
hack) 

The leader of the opposition appearing to have read
http://uk.eurorights.org/issues/cd/bad/ based on many of his
comments (i.e. he said many of the things that were on the
leaflets we had to hand out) 

One of the proposition reading out several verses of "Thank
you for the music" by Abba. We got the point after the first
verse, but we then stated to wonder if he had permission
from the rights holder, or was he simply claiming "fair
use"? 

The proposition trying to defend the vast profits they make
on many CDs sales, and trying to make themselves look
philanthropic about many of the artists they take on 

The proposition keep claiming "you can't have/make music
without the music industry" and then not letting anyone
speak to point out the inaccuracy of this 

Everyone (yup, both sides, but more so the opposition)
laying into the likes of Pop Stars, Pop Idols etc 

The quality of the examples/figures etc given by both sides.
The proposition kept pulling out these massive numbers on
falling sales, the opposition pointed out which areas were
falling and which were growing (quite insightful, and hardly
surprising). 

One of the opposition speakers telling us about his recent
music shopping experiences (including how he'd been in HMV
buying a couple of CDs, and the people in front of him in
the queue who were buying several CDs were also talking
about how to download various P2P clients). 

One of the proposition giving figures on the Linkin Park
album (sales, downloads etc), the leader of the opposition
saying he'd personally downloaded it and then gone out and
bought it, asking for the figures of how many people who'd
downloaded it had bought it, and being told "I have no
figures, and nor do you" by the proposition, nicely ignoring
the fact that they both then had a figure showing that 100%
of people surveyed there who'd downloaded had also bought... 

Jay Berman probably being the best proposition speaker, and
coming out with the insigtful "Each generation has had their
own music. For your generation it's filesharing. And I think
thats a pretty terrible thing" 

Ronnie Gurr being good once he'd warmed up (Martin has more
on him on his page) 

The votes (a massive landslide for the opposition, with 72
Ayes to 256 Noes) 

Hilary Rosen almost voting against the motion (you vote by
walking out the correct door, and she wasn't paying any
attention) 

Alastair's photo (the others) of Hilary Rosen talking to
someone wearing a Corrupt Audio T-Shirt, and appearing to be
reading it. 

Us clapping and cheering Hilary Rosen and friends as they
left, and them appearing not to get the sarcasm (this being
a scant 20 minutes after we were giving fliers to everyone
leaving the debate 

Discovering that one of our number was a Dave Green on TV
fan, while queueing up for Kebabs. 

Oh, and a few other things that currently escape me. I might
write them here later...