Cary Sherman editorialized in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, defending the RIAA's impending lawsuits against students who used Internet2 for file-sharing. Sherman referred to a "new strain of the epidemic of music" and called the students' "theft" a "dangerous pollutant." Yo' mama, Sherman. That was Sunday, and on Tuesday a professor at Carnegie Mellon University responded with a letter to the paper that took the entire music and broadcasting industry to task for generations of immoral and obstructionist behavior. If only the dialog were happening on a blog.
RIAA: Students are Sick Criminals
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. I particularly liked Mr. Dannenburgs' comments about the recording companies not paying the royalties their artists are due. What's even more interesting is that many of these artist's contracts don't provide for royalties to be paid on sales of file downloads. If the record company provides a way to buy their music online, only the record company profits. Scary.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by John Newman
3. For an interesting list of music "industry" scams, including many perpetrated by RIAA members, visit the funny and cynical http://www.mosesavalon.com
Much of the quasi-legal mistreatment of recording artists has been going on so long as to be institutional. The major labels don't know how to play any other way...
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by gtrguy
4. I found this fantastic Article in the electronic version of the New York Times By JOHN SCHWARTZ, Published on April 5, 2004, (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/technology/05music.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5007&en=71b2898a5d0c0b03&ex=1396497600&partner=USERLAND) called 'A Heretical View of File Sharing'. Among other things, it mentioned this very intriguing thing about all this ho-ha over P2P technology.
"it would take 5,000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one copy," they wrote. "After annualizing, this would imply a yearly sales loss of two million albums, which is virtually rounding error" given that 803 million records were sold in 2002. Sales dropped by 139 million albums from 2000 to 2002.
"While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing," the professors wrote. - Felix Oberholzer-Gee of the Harvard Business School and Koleman S. Strumpf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sounds like the ARII is barking up the wrong tree.
I'm currently writing on this topic on my blog, so if you want to visit, i'm at http://mtserver.media.arts.unsw.edu.au/mt/3159994/
5. Sick criminals. Yeah. Students are right up there with murderers and pedophiles.
I think the way the industry cheats artists, and even each other (producers, lawyers, managers, etc...they all have tricks for cheating each other, the labels and the recording artists) and try to sue everyone from 12-yr olds to 80-yr olds, not to mention the way they put out crap and want to charge us anywhere from $10 to $30--those industry people are criminals. When I start practicing entertainment law, I'm going to find a way to prove downloading and sharing music is not truly illegal, or prove it SHOULDN'T be.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by nunya
1. Of course Sherman wouldn't include her e-mail address on the editorial page. I know I'd like to drop her a few sizzling lines.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by brian