Lessig And RIAA Answer NewsHour Questions

Zeta writes "The answers are finally in! Stanford's Lawrence Lessig and the RIAA's Matt Oppenheim have responded to all the tough questions on copyrighted music, many from Slashdot readers, for the online part of the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Take a look - some of the responses may surprise you." We ran the original call for questions a few weeks back.

Comments

Re:The RIAA guy is an idiot...Copy the good stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

That sort of brings up issues about if an auto manufacterer could stay in buisness if everyone did that doesn't it?

legal parrots

[poptones]

That's it exactly. Even Jack Valente - ever notice how when anyone asks a question about ethics or hitorical precedent they avoid the issue entirely, simply saying "it's the law and this is our position?" Well duh - that's because you bought the fucking laws. Apparently they don't realize that, while they claim to be "trying to reach the young people" they don't realize that they basically sound exactly like any parent saying "you can't do that because I say so and I'm the parent." Yes, we all know how well that psychology works with people in every other walk of life. Very sharp cookies, these folks.

It's not even a fun show anymore... they've become complete bores; the tribe has spoken by the millions: it's time for the men in the sharkskin suits to leave the island.

The RIAA and the Survival of the Arts ???

[Onan The Librarian]

Mr. Oppenheim remarks: "If art of any form is going to survive and flourish in our culture, we need to support it and protect it."

This is a cynical and ingenuous statement. Perhaps Matt believes that is the goal of his organization, but its aims appear now to have more to do with lining its executives' pockets than with the promotion of the arts. The music industry wants us to believe that without them there would be no more music, no more arts. What crap. People would still write, play, and even record & distribute music. People did plenty of that before there was a music industry. The only difference would be... no music industry ! Which of course means no more fat cats, no more industry control of popular culture, no more middlemen whose main purpose in all of this is to keep their jobs.

And yes, Matt, some of us have considered that whole infrastructure from Sheryl Crow to the clerk at the local CD store and everyone in between. The Internet indeed threatens the existence of that infrastructure, and it is in the way of such things that your industry would rather fight than switch. I find it still ludicrous that iMusic and similar services are being touted so loudly, when the total amount spent on a CD's number of songs still comes to what you'd pay for a CD in the store. Yes, we get to choose the tunes, but we actually get less (no packaging, no Easter eggs, no value added) for the same money. Which means your industry can charge essentially the same amount of money for the product while eliminating the infrastructure you yourself want us to care so much about. Hmm...

Here's a real idea, Matt: Why doesn't your industry get it together to place kiosks in my local CD store, kiosks that are basically high-speed connections to a content delivery service. These stands would let me select or even design the CD cover material, then I could download and burn the content to disc right then & there, I get the jewel case and all. Hey, if I spend enough maybe you guys could throw in a little extra value, kinda like all the bonus material you get from a DVD. You think a store with maybe twenty of those kiosks would do a bumpin' business ?

So there's an idea, Matt. I haven't copyrighted or patented it yet, so I'll let you have it for free. Go ahead, share it with your friends. I'm releasing it on the Internet under the GPL anyway...