p2pnet - rss feed: The RIAA: spinning like a top
p2p news / p2pnet: The entertainment industry has for decades been sliding by with one shabby scam after another to keep the coffers of its shareholders filled with gold, and its customers under iron control.
But what goes around comes around and for the first time, the world at large is finding out exactly what a corporation that’s a typical member of the movie and music cartels thinks of the people who’ve made it so obscenely wealthy.
That company is Sony BMG, caught treating its customers with such dripping contempt that even the mainstream media, which traditionally only present the corporate side of the p2p file sharing story, are being forced to cover it.
Damage control is the order of the day and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) president Cary Sherman is front and center, trying desperately to present the mega-billion-dollar industry as calm and reasonable, but struggling against the wicked child p2p file sharers and others who are trying to rob it of its profits
However, under the light cast by the Sony BMG DRM debacle, his efforts are stripped bare and shown for the disingenuous equivocations that they are.
Here’s an example:
CPLisa: A question submitted via e-mail: It has been said that since the lawsuits began a couple of years ago, the number of P2P users has doubled. It seems that the lawsuits are not really that effective at stopping the file-sharing problem. What can the RIAA do at this point to make a bigger difference in the ongoing battle against piracy?
Sherman: There’s a lot of conflicting data about the level of p2p file sharing. It’s not easy to monitor what is actually happening on the Internet, so I guess it’s not surprising that the data would be inconsistent. We’ve seen data that shows that file-sharing has remained relatively flat, and some that shows growth, but at far lower than the rate it was growing before the lawsuits. And relative to broadband penetration, which has gone way up, file-sharing has been either level or gone up only slightly.
In fact, there’s absolutely no inconsistency in, or doubt about, statements that file sharing is becoming more and more popular. Nor has file sharing gone up “only slightly”.
In October, 2004, an average of 6,255,986 people around the world were logged onto the p2p networks simultaneously at any time of the day, p2p research firm BigChampagne told p2pnet.
By October this year, the number had rocketted to 9,168,812 and in the US, the statistics were 4,435,395 and 6,530,408 respectively.
A new report confirms this, emphasising that the practice of file sharing is growing. Nor are users deterred by possible legal action, says XTN Data, going on, “We estimate there to be 52 million people in the US using file sharing software.”
Meanwhile, below is an unexpurgated CP NewsLink transcript of a ‘conference’ between Sherman and different college newspapers. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Moderator: OK, let’s begin. Thank you, everyone, for coming to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)’s CPNewsLink newsmaker conference today.
We are pleased to welcome as our CPNewsLink guest this afternoon Mr Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The RIAA’s member companies are responsible for creating, manufacturing, or distributing 90 percent of all legitimate sound recordings sold in the United States.
As many of you know, the RIAA is an organization frequently in the news when it comes to issues of online file sharing and music piracy, and recent weeks have been no exception. The recent shutdowns of file sharing services Grokster and i2hub have generated headlines across the country.
Today, we will have the chance to hear from Mr Sherman on these developments and others affecting colleges and universities in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision this summer.
Mr. Sherman, welcome.
Sherman: Good afternoon. It’s great to join you all once again in this forum. I very much appreciate the invitation. Before taking your questions, I have just a few opening remarks.
When it comes to illegal downloading, a great deal has changed since I last participated in an online chat with college reporters in April of this year: The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unanimously in MGM v. Grokster that not only individuals but businesses that encourage illegal file sharing can be held accountable for their actions.
That decision was followed by a series of similar international rulings in Korea, Taiwan and Australia, where the Federal Court found Kazaa to be illegal.
Earlier this month, Grokster agreed to settle with the major record companies, movie studios and publishers, marking an important milestone in the continuing transformation of the online marketplace. And just this week, we saw reports that i2hub had gone dark.
What does all of this mean? Contrary to what you might think, it means even more options for enjoying music and movies online. These developments have given the legitimate online marketplace a tremendous boost - enhancing our ability to invest in new bands and new music.
This is, after all, about more than just the artists at the top of the Billboard charts. This is about the next generation of music. It’s less about the musicians of today and more about the unsigned musicians of tomorrow. When you download a song illegally or burn a copy for everyone on your dorm, you are undermining the ability of the music companies to invest in the next great up-and-coming band you have yet to hear about.
The impact of these efforts is already being felt on college campuses across the country, with almost 80 schools now offering students a legitimate music service. This is tremendous progress from just two years ago, when this map was qute literally empty. Yet we recognize that there is considerable work still to be done, particularly in regard to addressing the emerging challenges of campus Local Area Networks or LANs as well as unauthorized hacks of iTunes such as myTunes and ourTunes.
We look forward to continuing our work with the university community on these important issues as well as our work with music services that respect the laws protecting creators.
With that, I am happy to take your questions.
Moderator: Let’s begin with a question that’s on everyone’s mind. On a timely note, what do you make of the shutdown of the i2hub file-sharing network earlier this week? What does it mean for students and file-sharing on campus?
Sherman: We’ve seen the same reports that i2hub has shut down. To the extent that this reflects their reading of the Grokster decision, we’re not surprised. In fact, other p2p’s appear to have read the decision the same way, as WinMX has also reportedly shut down, and other p2p’s are in active discussions for how to turn their businesses into legitimate services. What this ultimately means is that venture capital money and advertising money will flow to licensed music services, which will give them the incentive to innovate and provide even better music experiences to their consumers. The winner will be music fans who want better and better online music experiences.
Moderator: OK, now we will turn it over to our participants for some questions. Participants, if you can, when asking a question, please state your school and newspaper name at the front of your question. And now we will move to take our first question… Please stand by.
UMass - Amherst, The Massachusetts Daily Collegian: Mr. Sherman, I am wondering what your thoughts are on the price of music to the public. In that what is the production cost of a CD and how much of the money goes to the musicians and the record company as profit. I feel that a lot of people cannot justify spending $15 on a CD to give more money to people that are already very wealthy.
Sherman: It’s a common misconception that when people spend $15 on a CD, they’re simply paying ultra-rich megastars and big record labels. First, a lot of that $15 goes to the record retailer who is trying to make a living by selling music. But more importantly, behind the artist you’ve heard of, there are countless others who have contributed to that recording or to trying to make that recording a commercial success. Studio musicians and background vocalists, the members of the band, the studio engineers, the producers, the songwriters and publishers, the marketing and promotion people — you wouldn’t believe how many people get involved in the making of a CD from conception to distribution. They make their living by the revenues that are earned from the sale of the product. When people download it without paying for it, or get a burned copy from someone else, there’s that much less money for the people who worked to make that recording. And there’s also a lot less for record labels to invest in another artist tomorrow.
USC, Daily Trojan: Can you please briefly explain what I2Hub is?
Sherman: i2hub is (or was) a file-sharing network that was specifically configured to operate on Internet2, an ultra-high-speed network largely used for academic research purposes. Unfortunately, the major use of i2hub was copyright infringement, especially of movies and music albums, because they could be transferred in minutes instead of hours.
Columbia University, Columbia Spectator: With fears of illegal file sharing throughout the music industry, many companies have taken measures into their own hands. Within the last two weeks, there has been a great deal of discussion about Sony BMG’s rootkit program. Does the RIAA condone such actions on the part of individual companies to protect their profits?
Sherman: There is nothing unusual about technology being used to protect intellectual property. You can’t simply make an extra copy of a Microsoft operating system, or virtually any other commercially-released software program for that matter. Same with videogames. Movies, too, are protected. Why should CDs be any different?
The problem with the SonyBMG situation is that the technology they used contained a security vulnerability of which they were unaware. They have apologized for their mistake, ceased manufacture of CDs with that technology,and pulled CDs with that technology from store shelves. Seems very responsible to me. How many times that software applications created the same problem? Lots. I wonder whether they’ve taken as aggressive steps as SonyBMG has when those vulnerabilities were discovered, or did they just post a patch on the Internet?
One other thing to point out: The music industry has been more permissive about copying of its copyrighted product than virtually any other industry. How many burns are you allowed of a movie? None. How many of a videogame? None. You get the idea. Even the CDs with content protection allow consumers to burn 3 copies or so for personal use. The idea is not to inhibit personal use, but to allow personal use but discourage (not prevent, you can never prevent) copying well beyond personal use.
University of Southern Mississippi, The Student Printz: History seems to show that anything done to stop files sharing will only create new methods and technologies to get around their controls. In light of that, should the middlemen (RIAA, et al) be thinking about ways to bring consumers what they want — which they’ll mostly end up getting in any case — instead of futilely struggling to keep their finger in the dike, which ultimately only causes further public unhappiness with them?
Sherman: History also shows that no matter what is done to stop bank robberies or shoplifting, some people will always find a way around those techniques. Does that mean we should simply give up and allow people to take what they should be paying for? Record companies ARE trying to give consumers what they want. Think of how music was available just a couple of years ago and how it’s available now. You can buy an individual track, at any time of the day or night, and get it instantly on line. You can subscribe to services with a million-and-a-half tunes to choose from that you can listen to whenever you want, for an all-you-can-eat monthly fee.
And these models are just the beginning. Online offerings (as well as new forms of physical offerings) will continue to get better and better. That’s the marketplace at work.
University of Southern Mississippi, The Student Printz: If gun makers are not liable for the public’s illegal use of their products, why are p2p sites?
Sherman: If a gun manufacturer encouraged a gun owner to use the gun in the commission of a crime, you can be sure that they’d be liable. The Supreme Court said that Grokster could be liable for actively encouraging or inducing its users to commit copyright infringement.
CPLisa: A question submitted via e-mail: It has been said that since the lawsuits began a couple of years ago, the number of P2P users has doubled. It seems that the lawsuits are not really that effective at stopping the file-sharing problem. What can the RIAA do at this point to make a bigger difference in the ongoing battle against piracy?
Sherman: There’s a lot of conflicting data about the level of p2p file sharing. It’s not easy to monitor what is actually happening on the Internet, so I guess it’s not surprising that the data would be inconsistent. We’ve seen data that shows that file-sharing has remained relatively flat, and some that shows growth, but at far lower than the rate it was growing before the lawsuits. And relative to broadband penetration, which has gone way up, file-sharing has been either level or gone up only slightly.
Whatever we do, we know that file-sharing will continue, just as physical piracy will always continue no matter what we do. We all recognize that the most important thing we can do to deal with illegal activity online is give consumers a better alternative — a legal service that they love. That’s what lots of companies are now doing, and we hope that ultimately the legitimate marketplace will outpace the illegal downloads.
U. of Houston: What future measures does the RIAA plan against music piracy? Is it going to be protected so no one can make a copy of cds?
Sherman: You’ve got to distinguish between what RIAA does and what individual record companies do. RIAA will continue to protect intellectual property rights in court, etc. But only an individual record company can decide to use copy protection on a CD. Record companies have different policies on whether to use such technology, but I know of no record companies in the US that have sought to prevent the making of any copies at all. Everyone understands that consumers want to be able to listen to their music in their car, in the family room, at the beach, and that allowing them to do that is part of giving them a great music experience. So even when a CD is protected, it will almost certainly allow personal use copying.
Moderator: And that leaves us time for one more question.
UMass - Amherst, The Massachusetts Daily Collegian: Thank you for your answer, Mr Sherman. Is it not rather harsh of the RIAA to be suing college students that most likely will not have the ability to pay the fines imposed on them? And along those same lines will the RIAA still follow though with the lawsuits even after all the p2p networks are shutdown and college students get the point and stop downloading music illegally?
Sherman: Obviously, anyone who has stopped downloading (or uploading) illegally will not get sued. Lots of college students try to justify taking music for free because they can’t afford it. That, of course, is no excuse, any more than it would justify stealing a CD from a record store. And for generations, students have spent their hard-earned dollars on the music they love in the local college record store. How many of those stores are left now? Makes you realize just what the impact of illegal downloading can be, and why we’ve taken the actions we have.
Moderator: Mr. Sherman, any closing remarks?
Sherman: I want to thank all of you for participating in this afternoon’s chat. Illegal file sharing on college campuses is an issue that looms large for us, making it all the more important that we take opportunities such as this to help the higher education community better understand our positions and actions. Thank you for your thoughtful questions and for your time today.
Moderator: This concludes today’s newsmaker conference with Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The conference is brought to you on CPNewsLink, a joint service of College Publisher and Collegiate Presswire. On behalf of the RIAA, thank you for attending, and thank you for your interest. And, on behalf of the college journalists attending this event, and those reading about it, our thanks go out to Mr. Sherman for taking time out of his busy schedule to chat with us today.
If you have additional questions about this story, please direct them to Jenni Engebretsen, Jonathan Lamy, or Amanda Hunter of the RIAA at (202) 775-0101.
November 21st, 2005 at 8:35 pm
Excuse me I’ve gotta go get rid of my lunch.
November 21st, 2005 at 9:09 pm
What is the RIAA going to do about the record labels’ collusion to fix prices.
Why are radio station DJ not allowed to play songs according to listener requests.
Why does the members of the RIAA continue to bribe radio stations to play their songs when it is against the law to do so.
What is the average percentage of the price of a CD go to artists and songwriters?
What about the songs that were composed by Rafael Venegas’s father? Why didn’t your label pay him for his work?
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:47 am
Was this college journalists or Mrs. Marmalade’s third grade spelling class? What a bunch of puff, softball, lame questions! “Are you going to continue suing people? <whine, whine, whine> Well of course they are! That’s what lawyers do, they sue people. They RIAA is run by a bunch of mean, nasty, ruthless DC lawyers (aka ‘lobbyists’) unfettered by such things as conscience, ethics. morality, or fairness.
Well, if this is what the future of ‘real’ journalism is going to look like, more people will realize what crap Big Media is peddling and look elsewhere for accurate information, like the National Enquirer, uh, I meant p2pnet. Sorry, got my notes mixed up. I don’t know how I got the RIAA confused with Karl Rove claiming that space aliens made him out Valerie Plame as a Real Estate agent, uh I mean CIA agent. Oh yes, spin, pervarication, lying, dissembling (not disassembling, Mr. President,) etc. These damn Post-Its just all stick together sometimes.
–TurboGeek.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:57 am
I have one word - Censored
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:04 am
And how exactly did i2hub encourage sharing of copyrighted material?
As far as the RIAA are concerned inducement can simply be classed as not taking action to prevent it.
So lets return to the gun question. The gun makers do nothing to prevent people using guns for illegal purposes, so isn’t that inducement? It’s about money and lobbyists not who’s right/wrong as far as government/the law is concerned.
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:49 am
I wonder how many thousands of people out there are unaware this trojan was installed on their system.
Virus writers get jail time, so how about sony’s executives?
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:15 am
The utimate would be for sony to go bankrupt due to lawsuits.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:12 am
Idiot.
Microsoft allows you to make backup copies of their products as long as you hold a license to use them for each computer you use it on.
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:29 am
HELLO Mr ****ist,
I know who you are. You think your plan is working — trying to “bankrupt” your competitor (SONY-BMG) by spreading rumors and lawsuits.
Well let me tell you something, the Germans and Japanese are more perserverance than you assume.
I know who you work for…. It’s no secret. Your CABAL is going down, Iraq Genocide (over 100,000 human beings murdered in the name of Z***) is totally transparent. Your people be are indicted left and right. Cheney and Rumsfield are up shit creek, ready to be hanged.
GAME OVER!
You reap what you sow!!! Remeber that, Karma is a bitch… what goes around comes around!
You lose! GAME OVER!!!
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:27 pm
This is one thing that Jon does. He reports the news. The news in this case is not what Sherman is saying or why the LameScream college media is asking. The news is the softball questions and the spun answers.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:20 pm
Just a suggestion: Don’t post while high. It helps avoid embarrassment later.
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:07 pm
Just another suggestion: The only thing you need to fear, is that the people have power, your organization is crumbling…. Just some advice. You reap what you sow —- If you treat people with respect, then you get respect in return…
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:20 pm
Interesting how “big media” in North America tends to FILTER out these interesting truths…. SAD, sad day. this is why I say the fight for P2P, the INTERNET, and FREE-SPEECH is so important.
>>>>>>>> http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/91/368/16501_guantanamo.html
US special services torture thousands of innocent people worldwide
11/21/2005 14:22
Innocent journalists, diplomats and tourists are still being tortured in US-run concentration camps
The first conference of former Guantanamo prisoners, organized with the participation of the UN Committee Against Tortures and Amnesty International, finished in London yesterday. Members of the conference accused US authorities of keeping innocent people in jails under fictitious names, of using tortures against them and of organizing a network of secret prisons outside the USA. Guantanamo prison camp
The conference was launched with reports delivered by several people, whose lives were greatly affected by US jailers.
A British citizen named as Moazzam Begg moved to Afghanistan long before 2001. The man got married there, opened a small book shop and was living quietly in his own little world. US servicemen seized Begg in 2002: the man was put into irons and placed in a solitary cell of the X-Ray camp for three years. Moazzam Begg was suspected of funding terrorists with the income that he received from his book shop. Begg was lucky: he did not go insane, nor did he sign any statements of his own “confessions” and was eventually released in 2005.
An Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was a member of a German tourist group in Pakistan. The group was arrested, the German tourists were released, but Habib was sent to Guantanamo and then redirected to a secret jail in Egypt. US military men were
torturing him for six months, making Habib plead guilty of terrorist activities.
Hasan Eretri was sent from Guantanamo to Morocco for a year. The former prisoner said that when US investigators were interrogating him, they had both the list of questions and the list of answers, which he was supposed to sign.
Indonesian diplomat Saad Ikbal made a report about the state of affairs in Afghanistan after the US-led occupation of the war-torn country. The diplomat was kidnapped in Indonesia and then taken to a secret jail in Egypt: Saad Ikbal became a disabled person there as a result of tortures.
Al-Jazeera journalist, Sami al-Haj, a citizen of Saudi Arabia, is still being kept as a Guantanamo prisoner. The journalist made a report in Afghanistan, which evoked quite negative emotions with the US command. The reporter was arrested and sent to Guantanamo, where he was kept for three years without any investigation.
The above-mentioned and many other testimonies confirm the facts of tortures against humans used by US special services. In addition, it has become clear that a lot of people still remain USA’s prisoners, in spite of the fact that US investigators have nothing to accuse them of.
Experts participating in the conference paid special attention to the question of massive arrest of innocent people. Lawyers proved that US special agents had written documents confirming the fact that Airat Vakhitov, Guantanamo’s former prisoner of Russian origin, was a captive of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan prior to the US-led invasion in the country. However, the Russian man was taken to the camp as a Talib. To crown it all, no one has charged Vakhitov with anything afterwards.
It took specialists almost 12 months to collect the necessary materials for the conference.
Airat Vakhitov and other former prisoners of Guantanamo said that there was an infant and a 100-year-old man among others of the first group of prisoners, which the US military brought to the base from Afghanistan. Tens of people went out of their minds on the way to Guantanamo, others lost their reason as a result of experiments and medications used in the Guantanamo concentration camp.
There is no information on the number of prisoners in Guantanamo and its branches all over the world. Specialists believe, though, that the USA keeps about 600 individuals in the central camp and several thousands of prisoners are held in Afghanistan, Iraq and other US-controlled camps.
Russian lawyer Alexandra Zernova said that Russian prisoners of Guantanamo were a lot more active than others. “They were the first to raise the subject of tortures in Guantanamo. They conducted press conferences and thus exercised their fearlessness. They had to pay for it afterwards, when authorities started persecuting them,” Zernova said.
UN experts against tortures, Manfred Novak and Paul Hunt, said after the conference that the testimony collected with the help of former Guantanamo prisoners of Russian origin would most likely give rise to a special investigation within the UN’s framework.
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:23 pm
Frontcod technologies shut down their cache server, meaing new connections could not be made. About 24 hours later, many alternative cache servers were up and running. The network stayed up throughout.
You need a patched hosts file or .dll to connect - see here:
http://www.vladd44.com/
or here:
http://www.winmxworld.com/
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:32 pm
Yet we recognize that there is considerable work still to be done, particularly in regard to addressing the emerging challenges of campus Local Area Networks or LANs as well as unauthorized hacks of iTunes such as myTunes and ourTunes.
ourTunes, what a COOL program!!!!!! omg my music collection is gonna increase in size tonight :D:D
November 23rd, 2005 at 11:39 am
Did your Karma run over your Dogma?
November 23rd, 2005 at 2:41 pm
Really ??
Re-read the Eula.
November 23rd, 2005 at 7:57 pm
Did you miss something important???
>>>>>>>>> Why the Sudden Clampdown on Revisionists?
Opinion; Posted on: 2005-11-20 18:14:56
Political heretics being rounded up
by Rixon Stewart
Virtually unreported by the mainstream media and given little prominence even by those outlets that have reported it – probably so as not to alert too many – recent weeks have seen a major clampdown across the planet. On both sides of the Atlantic, historians, researchers and investigators have been arrested, detained and deported to Germany to face charges of “Holocaust denial.”
Among their number is German born Ernst Zundel, who immigrated to Canada in 1958 to work as a graphic artist. In the 1980s, he published a book called “Did Six Million Really Die?” and thereafter continued publishing and questioning conventional notions surrounding the Holocaust.
In 1985, he was charged with “publishing false news” and two famous trials occurred in 1985 and 1988. In his defense he brought in gas chamber experts, other historians and cross-examined a number of Holocaust survivors, who reportedly fell apart under questioning.
In 2003 he was arrested for an alleged immigration violation while visiting the United States. Thereafter he was deported back to Canada, where he was held in solitary confinement in a maximum-security jail for nearly 2 years before being deported back to Germany.
Upon arrival in Mannheim, Germany, the 65-year-old Zundel was charged with “Holocaust denial,” an offence that carries a penalty of up to 5 years in jail.
Likewise, Germar Rudolph was also recently deported back to Germany to face similar charges. A Max-Planck Institut doctoral student in chemistry, Rudolf re-examined Auschwitz and Birkenau in 1989 for traces of Zyklon B, the commercial pesticide with which the Germans fumigated quarters to exterminate the typhus-bearing louse, and which they are alleged to have used to gas millions of humans. As a scientist, he found the “gassing” claims to be scientifically untenable and therefore, in the eyes of German law, was judged to be “denying the Holocaust.”
He was sentenced in Germany to 14 months in jail, in 1995, but fled the country, settling down in the US. Despite his marriage to an American woman with whom he has a child, and despite to lack of any equivalent American law criminalizing thought or speech he was arrested on October 19, 2005, in Chicago, and deported to Germany on November 14.
Similarly, British historian David Irving was arrested on November 11, 2005, while visiting Vienna at the invitation of students from the city’s university. He was to have lectured on Adolph Eichmann’s offer to Jewish leaders in Budapest in 1944, to release Hungarian Jews in exchange for cash or trucks.
However, before he could address the students he was arrested on charges brought against him nearly sixteen years ago, of publicly denying aspects of the Holocaust.
According to an Austrian state prosecutor, if convicted he could face up to 20 years in jail.
Not only have America and Canada been deporting individuals to Germany to face the “Holocaust denial” charge, the Netherlands has too.
A Belgian national, Siegfried Verbeke, was charged with denying the Holocaust in August of this year, after he questioned the Anne Frank story. Two months later on October 6th, the Netherlands agreed to extradite him to Germany, where he faces 14 months in prison.
Meanwhile, the Swiss national René-Louis Berclaz is serving the eleventh of his 17-month sentence for doubting the ever-changing, utterly dubious gas chamber legend.
So why the sudden clampdown on Revisionists, and why now?
It’s been suggested that the Internet has panicked the Zionists, who to a large extent owe their power and influence to the Holocaust. After all, Israel was founded on its memory and if it’s proven to be a lie, or at least a gross exaggeration, the power the Zionists’ hold over ordinary Jews could be undermined. For the very notion of the Holocaust has been used not only to extract financial redress from other nations but also to keep ordinary Jews compliant.
In effect, it has become like a grotesque doll wielded by witch doctors, used to keep individuals from asking too many questions, from thinking for themselves, or stepping out of line.
Formerly, the likes of Ernst Zündel were written off as cranks and
Extremists, either completely blacked-out or their arguments wildly reinvented in flagrant straw-man concoctions. But the Internet has changed that. It allows skeptical individuals the chance to critically review the official line touted by the establishment and the mainstream media.
Moreover, the Internet illustrates that the accused are not “Holocaust deniers” – in the sense that they deny the Holocaust ever took place – or “right wing extremists” intent on resurrecting the Third Reich. That’s what the mainstream media would have us believe, but almost without exception, the accused admit that the Nazis were guilty of gross human rights abuses. What’s at issue here are the numbers of dead, how they died, and whether there was any clear plan of genocide at all.
In effect, these men were engaged in historical inquiry, trying to establish the truth and broadcasting their findings, and that cannot be allowed in the New World Order.
Without even questioning what happened during the Holocaust, we should be asking ourselves: if it’s necessary to exact such draconian measures against those who ask questions, what exactly is being protected? Are historical truths and the memory of Holocaust victims being defended, or is it one of the foundations of the New World Order, or Zionist power?
To cite one of literally thousands of puzzling inconsistencies, a 1948 Red Cross report details nearly a quarter of a million Jews died in Nazi concentration camps but found no evidence of Genocide. This is in distinct contrast to the figure touted nowadays by the mainstream media and portrayed by Hollywood. At the time, the Red Cross was a neutral body with no political axe to grind, so why the difference? But we need to ask ourselves not only why there is such a difference in the numbers, but also why those who ask such questions are being silenced?
As the old saying goes: “he who controls the past, controls the present…” and our perception of past events shapes the way we look at the world around us now. The Zionists understand this and know that the idea of the “Holocaust” is crucial to their power. This is why such harsh measures are being exacted against those who ask too many questions.
November 25th, 2005 at 1:46 am
US,UK proxies take CENSORSHIP one step further!!!
>>>>> http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5D64CEB4-0E14-4349-BD5C-A3A7A44D56B7.htm
US,UK asked to explain Jazeera memo
Thursday 24 November 2005, 17:18 Makka Time, 14:18 GMT
Aljazeera says it is investigating the authenticity of the report
Related:
Comments: Bush, Aljazeera memo
An uneasy relationship
UK gags paper over Aljazeera memo
Aljazeera probes Bush ‘bombing’ memo
Memo: Bush wanted Aljazeera bombed
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Journalists’ rights groups are urging the United States and Britain to provide clarification of a report that suggests US President George Bush sought to bomb Aljazeera.
The controversy surrounds details of a leaked British government memo published by a UK newspaper, the Daily Mirror, earlier this week.
“This is a very serious charge with grave implications for the safety of media professionals,” said Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
“Refusing to address these reports in a substantive way only fuels suspicions.”
The Mirror said Bush told UK Prime Minister Tony Blair at a White House summit on 16 April 2004 that he wanted to launch military action on Aljazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar.
Blair is reported to have talked the American president out of any such action, but the British government has refused to give any comment on the truth of the Mirror’s story.
‘Unprecedented violation’
Instead British media have been warned that they face legal action under the Official Secrets Act if they report any further details from the memo.
The Mirror’s report quoted an unnamed government official suggesting Bush’s threat was a joke but added another unidentified source saying the US president was serious.
The White House has rejected
the report as ‘outlandish’
Another media advocacy group, Reporters Without Borders said: “We find it hard to believe that President Bush really discussed this possibility. This would be extremely serious and would constitute a major and unprecedented violation of the right to information.
“If this report turns out to be true, it offers a new insight into the motives of the US forces, which have already bombed Aljazeera offices twice, in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
Aljazeera staff in Doha and overseas bureaus planned to stage a symbolic protest over the report on Thursday.
“The staff of Aljazeera have decided to organise on Thursday a symbolic sit-in in front of the headquarters of the channel in Doha and its overseas bureaus to protest against this news,” said Aljazeera journalist Youssef al-Shouli, who is also vice president of the Arab Association for the Defence of Journalists.
Petition signed
About 100 of the channel’s journalists and employees have signed a petition calling on the broadcaster’s board of governors to hold an official inquiry into the allegations.
They also demanded an immediate end “to attacks and incitement against Aljazeera and its employees” and called for “the opening of an inquiry into the bombing of Aljazeera’s offices in Kabul and Baghdad”.
There are fears that Blair-Bush
disputes may be made public
Aljazeera offices have twice been hit by US military action.
In April 2003, Aljazeera journalist Tariq Ayub died when the broadcaster’s Baghdad bureau was struck during a US bombing campaign.
And in November 2001 Aljazeera’s bureau in the Afghan capital, Kabul, was hit by a US missile.
On Wednesday, the British government’s top lawyer, Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith, warned media organisations they would be breaking the law if they publish details of the leaked document.
Kevin Maguire, the Daily Mirror’s associate editor, said government officials had given no indication of any legal problems with the story when contacted before publication.
Fresh revelations fear
“We were astonished, 24 hours later, to be threatened with the Official Secrets Act and to be requested to give various undertakings to avoid being injuncted,” Maguire told BBC radio.
Aljazeera said in a statement that, if true, the Mirror’s story would raise serious doubts about the US administration’s version of previous incidents involving the station’s journalists and offices.
“We demand an end to attacks and incitement against Aljazeera and its employees”
Youssef al-Shouli
Vice president, Arab Association for the Defence of Journalists
The Guardian on Thursday reports that fears of fresh revelations about disputes between Bush and Blair on the Iraq conflict could damage the two nations’ relations, prompted the unprecedented gagging of the media.
Senior MPs, Whitehall officials and lawyers were agreed that Lord Goldsmith had “read the riot act” to the media because of political embarrassment caused by a sensitive leak of face-to-face exchanges between the two leaders, reports The Guardian.
There were UK anxieties that US bombing in civilian areas in Falluja would unite Sunnis and Shias against British forces, adds the report.
Downing Street, the newspaper continued, stressed that the decision to take action was “entirely up to the attorney-general” and was intended to “draw a line in the sand” on further leaks.
November 25th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
One simple questions for these folks…
Question number one…
1. What percentage of songs on the average persons mp3 player were ontained “illeagally” through p2p networks??
2. Sony claims heavy losses from file sharing networks, yet they profit from manufacturing mp3 players. why doesnt riaa sue sony for encouraging file sharing because they are aware that most of the content going on their mp3 players was obtained illeagally.??
November 25th, 2005 at 8:49 pm
A News Revolution Has Begun
by John Pilger
November 25, 2005
New Statesman
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The Indian writer Vandana Shiva has called for an “insurrection of subjugated knowledge”. The insurrection is well under way. In trying to make sense of a dangerous world, millions of people are turning away from the traditional sources of news and information and to the world wide web, convinced that mainstream journalism is the voice of rampant power. The great scandal of Iraq has accelerated this. In the United States, several senior broadcasters have confessed that had they challenged and exposed the lies told about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, instead of amplifying and justifying them, the invasion might not have happened.
Such honesty has yet to cross the Atlantic. Since it was founded in 1922, the BBC has served to protect every British establishment during war and civil unrest. “We” never traduce and never commit great crimes. So the omission of shocking events in Iraq - the destruction of cities, the slaughter of innocent people and the farce of a puppet government - is routinely applied. A study by the Cardiff School of Journalism found that 90 per cent of the BBC’s references to Saddam Hussein’s WMDs suggested he possessed them and that “spin from the British and US governments was successful in framing the coverage”. The same “spin” has ensured, until now, that the use of banned weapons by the Americans and British in Iraq has been suppressed as news.
An admission by the US State Department on 10 November that its forces had used white phosphorus in Fallujah followed “rumours on the internet”, according to the BBC’s Newsnight. There were no rumours. There was first-class investigative work that ought to shame well-paid journalists. Mark Kraft of insomnia.livejournal.com found the evidence in the March-April 2005 issue of Field Artillery magazine and other sources. He was supported by the work of film-maker Gabriele Zamparini, founder of the excellent site, thecatsdream.com.
Last May, David Edwards and David Cromwell of medialens.org posted a revealing correspondence with Helen Boaden, the BBC’s director of news. They had asked her why the BBC had remained silent on known atrocities committed by the Americans in Fallujah. She replied, “Our correspondent in Fallujah at the time [of the US attack], Paul Wood, did not report any of these things because he did not see any of these things.” It is a statement to savour. Wood was “embedded” with the Americans. He interviewed none of the victims of American atrocities nor un-embedded journalists. He not only missed the Americans’ use of white phosphorus, which they now admit, he reported nothing of the use of another banned weapon, napalm. Thus, BBC viewers were unaware of the fine words of Colonel James Alles, commander of the US Marine Air Group II. “We napalmed both those bridge approaches,” he said. “Unfortunately, there were people there…. you could see them in the cockpit video… It’s no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect.”
Once the unacknowledged work of Mark Kraft and Gabriele Zamparini had appeared in the Guardian and Independent and forced the Americans to come clean about white phosphorous, Wood was on Newsnight describing their admission as “a public relations disaster for the US”. This echoed Menzies Campbell of the Liberal-Democrats, perhaps the most quoted politician since Gladstone, who said, “The use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency.”
The BBC and most of the British political and media establishment invariably cast such a horror as a public relations problem while minimising the crushing of a city the size of Leeds, the killing and maiming of countless men, women and children, the expulsion of thousands and the denial of medical supplies, food and water - a major war crime.
The evidence is voluminous, provided by refugees, doctors, human rights groups and a few courageous foreigners whose work appears only on the internet. In April last year, Jo Wilding, a young British law student filed a series of extraordinary eye-witness reports from inside the city. So fine are they I have included one of her pieces in an anthology of the best investigative journalism. Her film, A Letter to the Prime Minister, made inside Fallujah with Julia Guest, has not been shown on British television. In addition, Dahr Jamail, an independent Lebanese-American journalist who has produced some of the best frontline reporting I have read, described all the “things” the BBC failed to “see”. His interviews with doctors, local officials and families are on the internet, together with the work of those who have exposed the widespread use of uranium-tipped shells, another banned weapon, and cluster bombs, which Campbell would say are “technically legal”. Try these websites: dahrjamail.com, zmag.org, antiwar.com, truthout.org, indymedia.org.uk, internationalclearinghouse.info, counterpunch.org, voicesuk.org. There are many more.
“Each word,” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre, “has an echo. So does each silence.”
“Tell Me No Lies: investigative journalism and its triumphs”, edited by John Pilger, is published by Vintage.