RIAA with Don Reisinger: read, weep
p2pnet news | RIAA News:- Yesterday, in our post on Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s first 2008 goodwill gesture to an American student customers was to announce another 18 universities are being targeted as massive distribution outlets copyrighted music, we also said CNET’s Don Reisinger had promised to unwrap 10 questions he’d posed to the RIAA to, “clear the air”.
Today, “You’ll also notice that the RIAA really is all of those things most people believe they are,” he says in The Digital Home, going on:
“Of course, don’t necessarily tell them that because they won’t believe it.”
So what’s the bottom line?
The interview, “depicts the RIAA exactly how they want to be perceived – a group that relies on (and enjoys) lawsuits. It’s an organization that has little idea of what we truly want as consumers and for some reason, has a severe distaste for college students.”
On the hook was one of the RIAA’s newest recruits, Clara Duckworth, late of Hollywood’s MPAA who replaced the ex-misinformation director, Jenni Engebretsen ,who’s now the Democratic National Convention Committee’s deputy CEO.
Students are currently being targeted by the RIAA. They make easy victims.
This is happening, states Duckworth, because, “It was becoming clearer that despite cool new legal services [Yes' she actually said "cool new legal services"] and the ongoing educational efforts, too many students – some of music’s biggest fans – were getting their music illegally and learning the wrong lessons about stealing and the law. There had to be a deterrence factor involved so that individuals knew that along with personal consequences (ie, viruses, spyware infiltrating hard drive) there would also be legal consequences to engaging in illegal downloading behavior. Bringing lawsuits was by no means our first choice, but a necessary step we had to take.
So, why college students? – asks Reisinger.
Well, “college students have reached a stage in life when their music habits are crystallized, and their appreciation for intellectual property has not yet reached its full development,” says Duckworth, going on, “Understanding the value of intellectual property is important to the future job market for many of these students – industries that rely on copyright protection employ more than 11 million workers nationwide and continue to grow.”
“How do you respond to people who say your organization is a group of bullies?” – he goes on.
Responds Duckworth:
I have to step back for a moment. These are certainly heavy issues and none which we take lightly. When an individual is caught illegally downloading music, it sometimes happens that the person creates a stir. The reality of it is that nobody wants to get caught and most people complain when they are. The music industry has lost more than $3 billion in sales over the last few years. Bringing lawsuits is certainly no one’s ideal answer – we’re well aware of that. But if we had sat on our hands and chosen to do nothing about the piracy problem as the music industry was hemorrhaging jobs and lost sales, imagine what the extent of theft would be today and how the legal marketplace would be struggling to gain traction. The digital music marketplace is demonstrably better because of our efforts.
Q7 – “Do you think your policy of lawsuits and settlements work?”
“Absolutely,” Duckworth responds in complete contradiction of the proven fact pP2P file sharing has risen steadily and inexorably since the sue ‘em all campaign began in 2003.
Ignoring this, “Since we began this initiative, we’ve seen a p2p problem that once was growing at dizzying speeds essentially flatten out,” she says. “People are now more aware of what is legal and illegal when it comes to downloading music. But more importantly, bringing lawsuits is only one piece of the pie – we are actively investing resources in the education [read invading schools and interfering with studies] of students of all ages on the value of music and importance of copyrights and, perhaps most importantly, music companies are continuously partnering with exciting new services [read corporate mind-rape programmes] that offer fans an array of innovative opportunities to access their favorite music.”
Q9 – How do you respond to the people who say you’re going after Grandmothers and young children when you should be going after real criminals in gunships?
Duckworth: I’d give them the facts and encourage them not to believe everything they read that aggressively villainizes the organization. We have a physical anti-piracy unit that assists law enforcement agents in shutting down piracy operations both big and small. Oftentimes street peddlers selling bootlegged copies of music are also involved in large-scale drug and weapons trafficking, and we find clear evidence of that on raids. As for individuals themselves, we have no way of screening defendants based on demographics, socioeconomic status or perceived sympathy. Upon initial discovery of a violation, we have an IP address, a sampling of the files that were shared, and a timestamp of the activity. We consistently follow the prescribed legal process to obtain identifying information and always try to be fair and reasonable in resolving each of our cases.
Finally, for Q10, “Is there anything else you’d like to add?” – Reisinger asks.
“Regarding our college initiative, a university’s role in reducing the level of piracy on its campus cannot be overemphasized,” she states, adding:
We have consistently said that the more proactive a school is in the education of its students regarding its IT and enforcement policies, the offering of great legal alternatives so that students can have access to their favorite music (at deeply discounted prices or even for free), and most importantly, implementing effective technology that helps protect the integrity of its network, will lead to fewer instances of violations and fewer instances of hearing from us – a win for everybody!
And all with a straight face.
Also See:-
2008 goodwill gesture – Breaking: Apple Insider Leaks Ultra-Portable Details, January 14, 2008
The Digital Home – An interview with the misguided RIAA, January 15, 2008
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January 15th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Ms Duckworth, very well said. Very well indeed. You are a credit to the organisation, my dear lady!
People are finally beginning to consume music our way. If that isn’t obvious to the general public yet, just wait a few months and it will become very apparent.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
1. It’s not stealing, its infringing and that =! stealing.
2. Their lawsuits have had no affect whatsoever on piracy, infact piracy has increased because of them.
3. Their 3 billion is estimated if pirates would have bought the music in stores instead, they probably wouldnt even know the music existed at all if not for piracy and would therefore not have bought it in the first place so the figures comes from thin air for stupid people to believe.
4. I support fighting real piracy, the piracy for profits. but i think fighting internet piracy will fail because people will always share. it is in our nature, they can try and change humanity if they wish and i sincerely hope they turn inside out so rodents can knaw on their intestines while they try..
I weep for the industry being so ignorant and all the students whose future is ruined because they did something that is in the very nature of being human.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
He missed a question that simply MUST be asked by someone:
Q: “Why have you not sent a single letter to students attending Harvard? Are they uniquely not infringing?”
January 15th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
“…the offering of great legal alternatives so that students can have access to their favorite music (at deeply discounted prices or even for free)”
huh? i haven’t heard of any discount music and/or free alternatives. hey if anybody knows about any tell me, because i want to do the right thing. ; )
January 15th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
My school just got hit and it made front page news in the school. Only a matter of time for students to start protesting this.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
All the hoopala is over the idea they don’t want to change their outmoded business model because it is tough for them to figure a way to profit from the new one. They themselves are responcible for that change. No one made them decide to give sweetheart deals to chain stores for volume. The result was mom and pop couldn’t get the same deals so could not compete with the price difference and across the nation, mom and pop stores closed as a result. Anytime you remove large choice and replace it with small choices and leave no space for back catalog sales, what happens? The industry shinks as you can not sell less and do greater volumes of sales off less. Duh!
Then after the chains had the mass of national business came the news the majors would sell for less or they could take their business elsewhere. Not a major hurt for the chains but a near death blow for the music industry. When you reduce the cost of the product you don’t make more from less. Duh!
Filler to make an album out of less quality material results in the customer getting ripped off. That’s how P2P got it’s start in the first place. Why pay for what you don’t want? Duh!
Now the cartels want to sue anything that moves and has so much as a note of music in it. The PR blackeye they are getting over this isn’t improving business, no matter what is thought about the sue’em all. Instead most are beginning to get educated in the idea they don’t need big music because they can buy a game that has far more entertainment value for the buck. The majors are now in the process of instituting a general feeling of advoidance for their products. By doing this at the college level, they are cutting their own throats by ensuring there will be no next generation of mass music lovers tied to the product. In essence they are ensuring their death by turning public opinion against them. Duh!
It takes no great feat of imagination to figure out that hard drive transfers are far faster than the internet. Sueing won’t remove the wanting to share items, it will just take place in other means. Take your 500 gig USB hard drive to your buddy for the day, find the next day he has what he would like from your selection and you have the same in new stuff. Trace the internet IP on that one. Duh!
January 17th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Everyone know that RIAA=Vivendi/Universal+ Sony/BMG+EMI+Time Warner=a big pile or parasites.
I thought that the entairtainement business was about beeing cool!
No need to ask where all this business lost they are sufferibg is comminf from:
BOYCOTT!
January 17th, 2008 at 3:19 am
“college students have reached a stage in life when their music habits are crystallized, and their appreciation for intellectual property has not yet reached its full development,”
He is right!
Their music habit are crystalized in a Boycott and their intellectual property has reached their full development in the understanding that there is no such thing as an intellectual property.
Personally I refuse to discuss any copyright issues as long as these parasites are still alive. But be patient because the end is near for them so that we can have a debate without them after they are dead.