A long time ago (well, back in the mid 1990s), I came to know John Perry Barlow. I was General Counsel at Philips Media, and had just left an in-house counsel position at Walt Disney Studios. In other words, I was well versed in copyright protection. I think Disney may have genetically re-engineered me to stamp out infringements anywhere. I had read Barlow's missives in Wired magazine, railing against the current copyright scheme.
When I was invited to a gathering of record company executives where Barlow was set to be an afternoon speaker, I worked my way over to sit with him at lunch. Our banter was friendly, but from a vastly different perspective.
Barlow's main point then, which was at about the height of CD sales, was that record companies believed they were in the wine business. He asked, "What are you going to do when the music does not need bottles?"
In other words, he was looking a decade ahead when the entertainment business started its wrenching changes: CD sales plummeted and DVDs were becoming less of an option.
Barlow's background as a cattle rancher probably had little to do with his copyright perspective. It was more likely his role as a songwriter for the Grateful Dead that informed his thinking. Even as the band apparently wrapped up its legacy recently with a series of shows, it made space for folks to record and freely trade copies of the concerts.
It is that ongoing tension of content versus technology that I will explore in upcoming installments.
Join me in exploring the wine versus bottle discussion, across a wide range of the entertainment and technology landscape.
