Shock news: students vote for free music in Oxford debate.

Some of the music industry's most senior figures entered the lion's den last Thursday night. It was not a congressional hearing, nor was it a negotiation meeting with IE Music. Instead they faced a debate with some of the brightest students in the UK about the perils of free music.

Some 35 years to the week after the Oxford University Union pondered whether "free love is a threat to mankind", the historic chamber witnessed a debate on whether free music is threatening music.

From the opening jeers it was clear that students at Oxford are like most other students and approve of the idea, and the end result confirmed it: 24% in favour of the proposal and 76% against.

The speaker who received the toughest reception was RIAA chairman and CEO Hilary Rosen. "I searched on Google for `anti-RIAA'," explained "anti" student Wil Harris, "and came up with 81,000 hits. I did the same for `pro-RIAA' and came up with 149 hits."

The anti argument was clear: "the industry should adopt and nurture online music distribution," said Harris, with Doug D'Arcy arguing that the industry's anti-file sharing approach had "put ourselves on the wrong side of the audience and, in some cases, the wrong sides of our artists".

As if to show that some students do support the industry view, ...