Cary Sherman RIAA rant
p2pnet.net News:- “False and incendiary rhetoric” is, “demonizing the RIAA,” says its president, Cary Sherman.
What’s upset him or, rather, his bosses, Warner Music, EMI, Sony BMG and Vivendi Universal, is the Digital Freedom campaign, launched by the Consumer Electronics Association and other groups.
It has the Big Four Organized Music family deathly afraid.
“Consumers are willing to pay their fair share for the right to access music using new, cutting edge devices – but they shouldn’t submit to being gouged by the big studios and record labels,” says the campaign, started to defend the rights of students, artists, innovators, and consumers, “to create and make lawful use of new technologies free of unreasonable government restrictions and without fear of costly and abusive lawsuits”.
Jeez !!! - said the Big Four. Get Sherman out there ! NOW !
Sherman is the #2 truth adjustor for Organized Music’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and it’s his job to spin anything which alarms his bosses and Boy! – does Digital Freedom alarm his bosses.
It’s an, “extremist interpretation of fair use to frighten and mislead consumers and policymakers,” says Sherman in a CNET News farcetorial.
“CEA has twisted and contorted ‘fair use’ beyond its true intent, turning it into a free pass for those who simply don’t want to pay for creative works,” he rants.
“Critics like CEA sometimes lose sight of the fact that record labels and other copyright owners are as dependent on fair use as consumers.”
[No, really! We're not making this up!]
Fair use is neither, “an all-purpose excuse to make use of someone else’s property for free” nor an, “excuse to boost the sales of electronic devices and services on the backs of hard-working creators,” says Sherman —
— unless, of course, said devices, services and creators are in the thrall of the Big Four, a situation they’re desperately striving to bring about as they spend hundreds of millions of the dollars they screwed out of you on sue ‘em all lawsuits, pseudo-legislation such as Broadcast Flag and its various clones, buying politicians, and so on.
CEA president and CEO Gary Shapiro’s comment that unauthorized downloading is neither “illegal nor immoral” is, “illustrative of the extremist position of that group, especially given the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion otherwise in its 2005 Grokster ruling,” says Sherman’s CNET item.
That cost the Big Four a bundle. But it’s OK: they’re reaping the rewards as they use the Grokster decision to close down anything which smacks even faintly of fair use or competition.
“Fair use is, fundamentally, a balancing of interests,” says the RIAA’s Sherman, mooting a concept the so-called trade association’s owners singly and collectively do their best to ignore.
“All interests. Fairness requires us to look in all directions and to hear from all sides.”
Sadly, the Big Four wear blinkers and suffer from chronic selective hearing.
“The ‘Digital Freedom’ campaign claims that the entertainment industry’s goal is to ‘outlaw new digital technology and devices’,” says Sherman, adding:
“This kind of knowingly false and incendiary rhetoric is designed to distort the issue and thwart solutions by demonizing us. The fact is, we are not only music fans, but technology fans, too. We celebrate advances in technology and recognize the importance of finding new ways to deliver content.
“Instead of redefining fair use to promote a short-term free-for-all, let’s embrace the existing concept to allow for long-term growth of technology, while valuing and protecting the content it carries.”
Yes, Let’s.
(Thanks once again, Julie)
Also See:
deathly afraid – Digital Freedom Campaign, October 26, 2006
CNET News – The farce behind ‘Digital Freedom’, November 13, 2006
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November 13th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
…guarantee my fair use rights, one way or another. Fuck off RIAA bitches.
November 14th, 2006 at 12:01 am
If ever an industry deserved demonizing, it is the RIAA. Their campaign to lock up music, to demonize the public, to sue the very customers that they depend on for the financial livelyhood, to advance try the cases they bring to court in media prior to even bringing the case to court, and in attempting to do away with the fair use laws are doing nothing to win the very ones they need to bring over to their side to maintain their status. The fans are the ones that keep them in business and without the spending they do, there is no business.
The public is saying as loud as they can, the only way they can, that they do not agree with how the cartels are wanting to do that business. No one but the holders want DRM. No one but the holders want the prices so high for what amounts to vaporware in the form of 1’s and 0’s. Even more importantly, no one is buying it in the marketplace in substancial amounts; that’s why everyone but Apple is having problems with online music sales. Apples’ case is different. Their selling music to advertise their mainline, the iPod. They have developed the niche “coolness” market that keeps them afloat. Others trying to do the same thing are missing the boat. Those such as the Zune will never make it in the marketplace for the same reason the online sites aren’t making it. No one that buys wants the extras of DRM or rental plans that assure what you buy isn’t yours.
The RIAA is facing the same thing they dished out. They were the ones to demonize their marketplace and customers and somehow it doesn’t sit well with them? Well tough titty, the damage is already done and it started as one of their own making. I have no sympathy for them and their dying off as a business could not happen soon enough for me.
November 14th, 2006 at 1:04 am
> CEA president and CEO Gary Shapiro’s comment that unauthorized
> downloading is neither “illegal nor immoral” is, “illustrative of the
> extremist position of that group, especially given the U.S. Supreme
> Court’s opinion otherwise in its 2005 Grokster ruling,” says
> Sherman’s CNET item.
RIAA president Cary Sherman’s comment that the Supreme Court, in its MGM v. Grokster ruling, has ruled file sharing illegal, is illustrative of the extremist position of that group, especially given the fact that the Supreme Court merely overturned a dismissal in the defendants’ favor, and remanded the case back to district court.
Specifically, Grokster only says that a service provider may be liable for copyright infringement if the provider’s intent is to induce copyright infringement. The issue whether file sharing constitutes copyright infringement was never before the Supreme Court for review.
In fact, the question whether file sharing is copyright infringement is only being addressed in the sue-em-all suits against individual downloaders. In these suits, actual, specific file shares can be placed under analysis, rather than vague conclusions being drawn about file sharing as a whole.
November 14th, 2006 at 4:47 am
I would imagine this isn’t about what the customer considers “fair use” but what the RIAA considers fair use. Let’s look at this from another angle.
Recently in the news was an article that M$ had capitulated and now will pay the cartels a $1 or so for every Zune sold. Just think of what moneys they are thinking they are losing out on from other manufacturers. Theres the other mp3 makers, there is the mp3 players for computers, the hard drive makers, the computer makers, and on and on. When looked at it that way it makes far more sense in their terms and means diddly once again to the consumer who is viewed as the cash cow.
If they can’t drive them to the market one way, then there is always the round about way. Given that it may be likely that they will come out of sue’em all with a black eye and a bad rap, this is a logical next step. Should the courts decide that the cartels are misusing the statutory penalties as they were intended (and it is very likely they are) it would then shut down the freebees they’ve been getting through extortion. This appears to be a backdoor extortion attempt to the makers of hardware that will once again raise the price of their goods to cover the needed addons on to the customer yet again.
Just as was done with the blank media that “could be used for copying” so to can the computer be considered as such in extremist views. I’ve no doubt that this is the set-up for that move.
*SECOND ATTEMPT AT VALIDATION
November 14th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
“The issue whether file sharing constitutes copyright infringement was never before the Supreme Court for review.”
In Spain, a judge (juez Paz Aldecoa) has just decided that downloading, where exchange of money is not involved, is legal. In the case the government was asking for a two year jail sentence plus a hefty fine of about $8,000 for the downloader.
BTW, before this court decision how was the downloader to know what was legal and what was not? Just think about this question. Why should a person be penalized for doing something when no one knows if it is legal or not as RIAA and others pretend. No wonder these deserve to be demonized. Whatever hapenned to common decency in the USA?
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
November 14th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
The only hysterical extremists around here are the tyrannical RIAA unwanted middlemen.
November 14th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
“Fair use is, fundamentally, a balancing of interests,” says the RIAA’s Sherman. “Our interests simply require quite a bit more ‘balance’ than those of the consumer”.