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CMU Professor's Rebuttal Against RIAA Propaganda
jsc writes "On Sunday, the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette published
an article by Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, stating that
university students are hijacking Internet2 to pirate
copyrighted works, and schools who don't actively combat
file-sharing are teaching their students bad values like
"acceptance of theft". The Post-Gazette didn't let Sherman
get away with it, though... Today they published
a letter to the paper from Roger Dannenberg, a
professor of Computer Science and Music at Carnegie Mellon University,
reminding everyone how past/present behavior of the RIAA and
its members is an even worse model of values..."
Is he saying stealing from thieves (or unethical businesses) is not so bad?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
(Yet Another Internet Argument)
While I am quite pleased to see authority figures (even if they are just university professors) standing up to the RIAA, I must admit that Prof. Dannenberg actually did rather little to counter Sherman's arguments; while his points are good and valid, they do, unfortunately, follow one of the cardinal rules of internet arguing: Never argue the opponents points, only point out his weaknesses.
Mr. Sherman, you say that stealing "is not OK," and yet I have musician friends who cannot get RIAA members to pay them the royalties they are due. While you are asking universities to address your problems, please don't forget that you too can be a "powerful leader in curbing theft of copyright materials on campus." If you'll stop your members from stealing from my friends, and then study some history, maybe I can help you.
I'd love to find out who RIAA members are stealing from. That would really stop them from spouting off that the RIAA "protects" artists by allowing them to make a living!
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
*HMpf*
danalien - former filesharer, stopped 'stealing' garbage
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
I'm curious, is the RIAA aware that the universities are engaged in adult education?
KFG
Wow, a 10 sentence letter to the editor...thats breaking news and a clear-cut victory for the anti-**AA crowd.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
It makes sense, at least to me, that the RIAA's all-stakes vendetta against file sharers is taking things too far. While I do think that artists should have the ability to make a living off of their music, it does not at all justify the sheer amount of all out attack that the RIAA has been taking agaisnt File-sharers.
The RIAA's tactis have not done nearly as much I think to stop illegal file-sharing as LEGAL music downloads like Apple's iTunes and others have been doing. The scare tactics employeed by the RIAA only scares off some of the less-diehard file swappers, and does not deter the majority of the sharers out there. While it may seem like the number of file sharers has decreased, the majority of those that have stopped have probably moved to legal forms of getting music downloads. If the RIAA, instead of spending millions on lawyers fees to sue, spend that money on promoting legal music downloading, I have a feeling the impact would be greater
"You can call it a fallacy, and from a legal pov you are right, but I think the vast majority would consider it a lesser crime than stealing from a non-thief."
It however makes for an excellent slippery slope.
"reminding everyone how past/present behavior of the RIAA and its members is an even worse model of values..."
Two wrongs don't make a right.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
In the fight against the **AA's one or two articles will not do a whole lot when the **AA's are in the spotlight all the time "informing" the public about the evils of user controlled information. If there is a consitent outcry from regular people that are not being sued by the **AA's then mabey we would get somewere. Im not advocating the theft of software, however the **AA's are way out of line.
My buddy said the music industry needs to update their profit model.
I told him they had.
I have vowed never to purchase a CD new again. Exercise my right as a capitalist and vote with my dollar.
11. In a digital medium, music is just one big number, extremely easy to reproduce, exactly as it is, because it is a number. Before digital mediums this was not possible.
12. You cannot own a fact, not in the intellectual property sense or the physical sense of the word. You cannot own a number because it is a fact.
The intellectual property proponents are in what I like to call a fortified losing position. At one point they had a business model that was based on distribution and storage and now that model no longer works because distribution and storage have become far too easy and cheap. The whole IP discussion is ancillary to their current and future financial crisis. If they don't change their business model or manage to invade every aspect of your personal life in the name of IP (which has less to do with IP and more to do with monitoring and controlling you in ways most find offensive at best), then they will not maintain their entertainment cartel.
10cent bit of plastic for $15 and when it degrades to uselessness and you grab a copy off the net try to put your ass in jail.
To paraphrase NWA, 'Fuck the RIAA'
Su Senor Programmer
Sharing copyrighted music isn't theft; it's copyright infringement.
You have unrealistic expectations from that type of forum. The problem is, he wasn't writing an article, it was a letter to the editor. Letters that are article length either don't get published or get edited down to two or three short paragraphs. He did the best one could expect within those limitations.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Pot, meet kettle.
Your ass was fired - you were not right sized.
And it's copyright infringement, not theft .
A passion for apathy.
So my coworker tells me of his kid at college, that the university has a internet2 connection. He tells stories of pulling down whole movies in 10minutes.
My BS to this is... these are public universities funded with my TAX DOLLARS. While I was in school, you could get suspended and possibly expelled for abusing the computing systems (downloading pr0n, running a MUDD).
I'm sorry but how does downloading Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on DVD constitute the correct use of a universities network let alone internet2?
So if you look at what the internet2 is supposed to be http://www.internet2.edu/about/ you'll see such reasons for the internet2 as:
* Create a leading edge network capability for the national research community
* Enable revolutionary Internet applications
* Ensure the rapid transfer of new network services and applications to the broader Internet community.
Where does "Trade Maroon5 CDs" fit under this? Sounds like they (the universities and the leadership of the internet2 group) should be cracking down on these guys.
-
That's funny ;o} You mention the word work and how artists are somehow ripped off by the p2p crowd because they aren't getting paid for their work.
Its funny because work can be classified into two broad categories: enabling services and production services.
Enabling services are those that once you've performed them don't need to be done again and possibly allow other services (enabling or production) to be performed.
Think of the work involved in calculating the gravitational constant. Once its performed it doesn't need to be done again, but it allows for other services. In fact, there are so many I won't bother to list them here.
Then we have production services. These are the kind of services that must be done over and over.
For example the fabrication of a cpu is a production service (just the actual fabrication, the design of the cpu only needs to be done once allowing for the production of many cpus).
When you talk about the recording of an artist's works you are refering to an enabling service. Once an artist is recorded it doesn't need to be done again. On the other hand, when you talk about a live performance by an artist you are refering to a production service. It is a service that must be done again and again.
So when you talk about the p2p community ripping off the people who did pay for CD's you're simply confused. It is the recording & distributing industry that is ripping off the people who paid for CD's AND the artists. They over charge for the price of recording and distributing the music while skimping on paying the artists for the performance they have done.
People pay for services performed. In the case of an enabling service, there is a certain limit to the number of times it can be performed for compensation, which in the case of an artist's recording is very low. In the case of a production service, the limit on the times it can be done for compensation is typically pretty high.
An artist should take this to heart. Unless you can demand a very high price for performing your enabling service you may be better off doing a production service.
I have a solution for the RIAA and MPAA that will completely solve their problem with "digital piracy." It is completely within their power, won't require courts or laws. But they won't like it. Quit producing content in digital formats. Simple. Then stuff like CDs and DVDs can be put to work on something useful, like storage and transfer of worthwhile data instead of alleged "entertainment" from Hollywood & recording studios.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
You know what pisses me off? That I *do* find value in music and enjoy it very much and yet I can't get a non-protected err, non-"enhanced", CD from a particular artist that will play in my damned car's CD player ('99 honda accord, stock system so it is definitely not unique). Here I am, willing to part with $15 for a physical disc with liner notes, cover art, lyrics, and some minor biographical info and I'm not able to find one that I can actually use in the one place I want to use it. I don't have anything against iTunes, but if I buy an album, I want the physical object for my library. It seems like the musicians' fans ARE the market and the RIAA has missed the boat by focusing on illegal activity instead of what the market actually is. Which goes to my point. What happens when an entire industry has lost sight of the market? They try to remind the public of their supposed value and then someone or something arises to serve the real needs of the new market to the detriment of the previous (most likely) monopoly.
R.I.P. Recording Industry Ass. of America
Simply because someone points out that assuming all laws are right leads to some unpalatable conclusions, it doesn't necessarily follow that he or she is suggesting that we should assume all laws are wrong. I think a good example was given where widely recognized human rights violations are legal but wrong. I think the point was simply think.
Thinking outside my Head
Do we gain a better system by assuming the laws are always wrong?
No, but we most certainly DO gain a better system by assuming the laws are not always right.
Hello...he is a college professor. Did you go to college? College professors never actually say anything useful.
I choose not to argue that..
But then, why is it exactly you've chosen to attend a college where you realize you will gain nothing from your professor's teaching? Aren't you just supporting a system that (per your opinion) allows you to pay a lot of money to hear professors to say nothing useful?
Actually, I believe it's paying a lot of money to acquire a piece of paper that tells other people that you've listened to professors saying nothing useful...
There's a subtle but important difference.
Depends on what you mean by "work".
As I wrote, "everyone does it" does not make anything legal, so it will not get you off the hook with the law.
But it does work in the sense that nobody will call the cops when they see you, nobody will try to apprehend you, nobody will go out of their way to provide information about you to cops.
For example: if you go and mug somebody on a street, most people around will yell and call the cops, some may try to catch you, and when the cops arrive, everybody will be teling them things like "he was wearing a pink shirt with green polka dots and bright yellow tie...", and "he ran that way..."
When you smoke pot on the street, or jaywalk, nobody will give a hoot.
AccountKiller