Timothy B. Lee is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is a PhD student in computer science and an affiliate of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. He has written extensively about copyright and patent law, civil liberties, online privacy, and network neutrality regulation. His writings have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Slate, and Reason magazine. He is a regular contributor to Ars Technica, a popular technology news site, and to the widely-read Techdirt blog. From 2005 to 2007, while on the staff of the St. Louis-based Show-Me Institute, Lee documented the rampant abuse of eminent domain in Missouri. He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota.

In your article "The Day the Music Dies ", you review the consequences of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Could you explain to us what the DMCA consists and how it affects the music´s consumers?
The DMCA was a big copyright bill that the US Congress passed in 1998. It had several different parts, but the one that has gotten the most attention is the "anti-circumvention" provisions. These provisions make it a federal crime to "circumvent" a copy-protection scheme (also known as digital rights management, or DRM) designed to prevent consumers from making illicit copies of files.Consumers are affected because proprietary DRM standards break compatibility between different digital platforms, and the DMCA makes it illegal for third parties to create software to fix the problem.

So, for example, if you purchase a TV show or movie from Apple's iTunes Store, you're likely to have difficulty playing it on a non- Apple device such as a Playstation Portable or a Zune. And the DMCA makes it illegal for software companies to distribute software that would convert your legally-purchased, DRMed videos from one format to another.

What does think of the free download of music by Internet? Are you a supporter of chasing the bootlegging?
I think consumers should follow the law in their countries. Peer-to- peer file sharing without the consent of copyright holders is illegal in most countries, including the United States. I don't know the law in Spain but the same is probably true there.

In terms of "chasing bootlegging," I think it's up to individual copyright holders how aggressively they want to pursue their rights under the law. Personally I think the recording companies that have been most aggressive about suing their fans are going to find this is not a viable long-term strategy.

If the musical industry is in crisis in the whole world we have to suppose that the own industry will have some responsibility. Do you think it is a responsibility of the governments to solve the crisis of the musical industry by means of laws that protect the author's copyright?
I don't. And I think it's important to distinguish between the music industry and the recording industry. People have been making and performing music--and making a living at it--for millennia. In contrast, the recording industry is only about a century old. Peer-to- peer file sharing may kill off the recording industry, but that wouldn't mean the end of music. Rather, it would simply means that music shifts more towards its historical pattern, in which musicians make a living in other ways--live performance, giving lessons, etc.

Will not it be more logical that the companies and big labels assume their new situation and re-design their business´ model?
I think so, although I think there's some limit to how much they can do this. Remember that they're recording companies, not music companies as such. Their core competence is in distributing music by shipping plastic discs around the world. Obviously, this is no longer an efficient way to distribute music to people. It's not clear to me that the music industry of the 21st century will need large, vertically integrated firms like BMI and Warner Music. I think we're likely to see these firms get a lot smaller, if they don't go out of business altogether.

Obama has presumed to sympathize with an important part of the artists. Some of them, very known in the whole world, gave their support to the president in the electoral campaign. Do you think that this nearness to the artists might take him to propose important beneficial reforms for them? Or what is the same thing: Do you think the government will have a favorable deal toward the artists as payment as the support to Obama´s candidacy?
I suppose this depends on how one views the interests of artists. I think it's a mistake to assume all artists want the same things. On copyright, for example, some artists want to see copyright laws reformed, while others are supporters of the current, strong copyright laws.

With that said, President Obama is a politician, and like most politicians he has shown that he doesn't want to "rock the boat" in ways that upset vested interests in Washington. He has appointed a number of lawyers to key positions within the administration with close ties to the entertainment industry. So I wouldn't expect significant reforms of our copyright laws.

In general, do you think Internet has supposed a benefit or a prejudice for the bands and artists?
It probably depends on the band. For the most famous musicians, like Madonna or Britney Spears, I think the Internet has probably hurt them by undercutting the market for their CDs. For less famous bands, and new bands just entering the marketplace, I think it's been more beneficial, because it makes it easier for bands to attract and communicate with their fans. I think the big trend in the music industry is that music will be made more for love and less for money.
For musicians whose goal is to get rich, the Internet might be a bad thing. For musicians who want people to listen to their music, the Internet is a great improvement.

Do you think the governments tend to overprotect now to the rights of the authors to the detriment of the consumers´ rights?
I do. For example, the 1998 extension of American copyright law (and corresponding extensions elsewhere in the world) were a transparent give-away to large copyright holders.

From the ideological attitude you defend in CATO… which is the correct approach that we must give to the debate on the "intellectual property"?
In my view, the term "intellectual property" tends to confuse the copyright debate. Copyrights are different from property rights in important ways, and it's different from other "intellectual property" laws such as patents.

The American Constitution has a copyright clause that I think gives us an excellent way of thinking about the issue. It says that copyrights (and patents) must "promote the progress of science and the useful arts." This suggests that copyrights are not absolute, they must balance the goals of rewarding creativity and promoting public access to knowledge. I think this is best accomplished by having a balanced, limited copyright regime, not the extremely powerful copyright protections we have today.

And, finally, despite of the world of the law... how do you see the world of the music? What bands or artists would you recommend to our readers?
I like OK Go, Arcade Fire, Belle and Sebastian, They Might Be Giants, and Queen.