[A2k] [Fwd: [ipr] Young pirate has France's ear]

Tue May 16 10:52:25 2006

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Subject: [ipr] Young pirate has France's ear
From:    "Jerzy Celichowski" <celichow@osi.hu>
Date:    Mon, May 15, 2006 7:04 am
To:      "ipr list" <ipr@mailhost.soros.org>
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Young pirate has France's ear
By Thomas Crampton International Herald Tribune

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/14/business/audionaut15.php

SUNDAY, MAY 14, 2006
PARIS Some condemn Aziz Ridouan as an advocate of criminal music piracy,
while others say he represents the new generation of online consumers.
In either case, just about everyone involved in the French Parliament's
debate on laws governing music downloads listens to what this high
school student says.

"All sides must listen to Aziz because he has an entire generation
behind him," said Julien Dourgnon, economic director of the Consumer's
Federal Union, one of the largest consumer advocacy groups in France,
which has sided with Ridouan. "He may still be in high school, but Aziz
has a more profound understanding of copyright law than most lawyers and
members of Parliament."

To adversaries, Ridouan merely offers facile rationalizations for theft.

"You might call him Robin Hood if he gave to the poor by only stealing
from the rich," said Pascal Rogard, the director general of the Society
of Dramatic Authors and Composers, a group dedicated to protecting
authors' copyrights.

"But downloading doesn't just take money from Tom Cruise and Madonna,"
he said. "There are many smaller artists who live from the earnings that
Aziz refuses to give them."

The copyright legislation, which passed the French Senate last week, has
been championed by the government as updating copyright law to the
digital era, but it faced a roller-coaster ride through the French
legislature.

The National Assembly passed legislation that could force Apple Computer
and other companies to make songs purchased on their proprietary online
services playable on any device. The Senate, responding to corporate
arguments against such openness, approved a weaker version of the law;
differences between the two will be worked out by an interparliamentary
committee in the coming weeks.

Ridouan, now 18, first came to the national media's attention in 2004 as
the founder of the Audionautes - roughly translated as the audio surfers
- a nonprofit association providing legal assistance to those in France
accused of illegally downloading music, many of whom were brought to
court by the Civil Society of Phonographic Producers, the French
equivalent of the Recording Industry Association of America.

French-born of now-divorced parents who immigrated from Morocco, Ridouan
lives in a government-subsidized building in the Loire region of France
with his mother, who works as a cleaning woman.

Ridouan made his lobbying debut with protests against his Internet
service provider, America Online, at the age of 12.

First, Ridouan campaigned for the company to stop forcing users to
redial after being online for just 30 minutes, and then he led the
French side of a global protest to dump unwanted AOL promotional compact
discs outside the company's U.S. headquarters.

Persistent and perpetually smiling, Ridouan lays out his case for
legalizing music and movie downloads to any politician or lobbyist
making public appearances near his home, but often travels three hours
by bus and train to Paris.

In early May, during a school vacation week, Ridouan spent five days in
Paris meeting senators and members of Parliament, juggling more than
half a dozen media appearances and leading several hundred protesters
through the streets of Paris.

"There's no need for me to fake notes to skip class ever since I got
Sarkozy's written permission," said Ridouan, referring to a note issued
by the government to excuse Ridouan from classes for a meeting with the
French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy. "I don't even have the note
anymore because my teacher wanted to keep it as a souvenir."

Ridouan, who intends to study political science in college and turns off
both his mobile phones while in class, said his Audionautes-funded
lobbying does not hurt his studies. For the most part, Ridouan said,
lobbyists and politicians have been very welcoming and open to
discussion with someone so young.

"When I started raising the issue, many politicians didn't even know the
term downloading," Ridouan said. "My role often involves telling
politicians and audiences what high school students like me are doing
today."

His open manner wins praise from even those with whom he profoundly
disagrees.

"I really like Aziz as a person, but he is really just putting a nice
face on what is really theft," Rogard said. "Some say he symbolizes all
high school students, but I say he only symbolizes high school students
who participate in piracy."

Ridouan dismisses distinctions made between his behavior and the
downloading habits of his peers.

"Until we started speaking out in public, downloaders were only shown on
television like terrorists, with their face hidden and voice scrambled,"
Ridouan said.

Brandishing above his head the Hewlett-Packard laptop computer he always
seems to carry, Ridouan added: "I am proud to tell anyone that I
download and have plenty of music, movies and TV series on my computer."

Indeed, the media-savvy Ridouan began his lobbying association in 2004
by declaring his downloading habit in the middle of a news conference
called by a music industry trade group to announce a crackdown on 50
Internet pirates.

"If you think about it, the music industry aims to criminalize me and
people in my generation for not adapting to their methods of
distribution," Ridouan said. "I download a lot, but only because they do
not offer an attractive enough alternative."

The amount of media and consumer attention given to Apple Computer's
iTunes service only serves to demonstrate how badly the entertainment
industry has addressed young people, Ridouan said.

"ITunes and their one billion songs sold seems big until you compare it
to the number of songs downloaded over the Internet for free every day,"
Ridouan said.

The London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
estimates that there are nearly one billion copyrighted files available
for free downloading on the Internet. "The Internet totally changed the
distribution channels, but the major music publishers refuse to adapt."

Ridouan said he was eager and willing to compensate artists, but not at
the rate that record companies demand.

"The price for downloaded music is set at a level that includes the cost
of making and shipping a compact disc," Ridouan said, pointing to the
similarity of music prices in shops and online. "You can be certain that
the money they saved is not going back to the artists."

As for the amount he can pay, Ridouan said that for a high school
student living with his single mother - who works for little more than
the minimum wage - he cannot afford much.

"The Internet is a magnificent new way to distribute culture, and why
should I be stopped because of my limited means?" Ridouan said. "The
Internet serves my generation the same role as the library did for
previous generations."

One of Ridouan's lines of argument - drawing parallels between access to
music online and access to books in libraries - has been attacked in public=
.

"You want the biggest discotheque in the world, but everyone has their
dreams," Pascal N=E8gre, chief executive of Universal Music France, was
quoted by the newspaper Lib=E9ration as countering to Ridouan at the 2004
news conference.

"There are girls who want 153 diamonds but they can't pay for them, so
they have none," he said.

The solution advocated by Ridouan is a fund financed by fees from
Internet users and Internet service providers from which artists would
receive payments based on the popularity of their works, similar to the
system used by radio stations.