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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.
"I'm rubber, you're glue."
(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.
I hate the MPAA/RIAA as much as anyone, but I wish this letter had had more meat in it. In particular, the final point ("I know people who haven't gotten their checks from you guys, so nyah") is a pretty weak...
The first part is ok, I just wish there were more of it. It's not like the recording industry's history doesn't have enough hypocricy to fill several articles. That would have made a better impression. "Extending musical copyrights for centuries is absurd, and clearly just a money grab" is a much better argument (imho) than "You steal from us, so it's ok if we steal back".
"No, he's saying people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."
People who live in rubber houses shouldn't either.
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.
I'm curious, is the RIAA aware that the universities are engaged in adult education?
KFG
Tonight'll be your night.
I got this long-assed knife,
and your neck looks just right.
My adrenaline's pumpin'.
I got my stereo bumpin'.
I'm 'bout to kill me somethin'
A pig stopped me for nuthin'!
Cop killer, better you than me.
Cop killer, f**k police brutality!
Cop killer, I know your mama's grievin'
(f**k her)
Cop killer, but tonight we get even.
Yeah, it's those damned colleges that are corrupting the moral values of America's youth while the RIAA stands for all that is just and good.
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
While I'm sure that the points he raises are valid, overall I'd say that was a really weak letter, and not something that deserves front page on Slashdot. Who are these "friends" exactly? How about some more modern examples of RIAA bullsh*t? The examples he gives are so far in the past that they are hardly relevent now. He needs a more developed argument and much more supporting evidence.
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
- People have been use to getting free music for decades -- ever since the birth of radio.
- People used to feel the money paid on records was mostly in the physical process of making records and distributing them, but now they see with 10 cent CDROMS and 1/10 of a cent per Meg of disk space that playback mediums are now virtually free.
- A lot of people feel recorded music is all advertising. Why would you listen to an artist if you hadn't already heard the artist and why would you pay for something you've already heard?
- In the past people bought records they heard on the radio only because they didn't have a convenient way to record just the songs they wanted and to index, label, store, and retrieve them.
- In the past people didn't feel like chumps for plunking down $10 for and album and $15 for a CD, because there weren't millions of others are getting this stuff for free. Let me make the point clearer - even if the RIAA scares someone into not downloading music from the net, the willingness to pay full price will also be diminished because the tantalizing free stuff lies just a wire away.
- Some portion of the potential audience feels that musicians are over compensated, immoral, prima donnas that can't actually perform outside a recording studio without 100 retakes and then special post processing to improve their marginally capable voices.
- Some people prefer live music and think money paid for a live show is the only real compensation music artists should expect.
- Music artists and the RIAA are seen as hypocrites hawking anti-establishment messages and then looking for special rights, powers, and protection from the establishment to maintain their empire.
- Ever since the death of the 45-rpm single, people have felt coerced into buying all of the songs on a CD or album when all they wanted was a song or two.
- When people buy something they like to feel they actually own it and can do what ever they want with it. You can buy or subscribe to music singles again these days, but not without some flavor of DMCA. Some more draconian than others.
So ironically it is not that some huge percentage of the population is listening to bootleg music, though they probably would if the RIAA weren't fighting this loosing rear guard action, but that the cheapness of distributing music has been uncovered and become known because bootleggers exist. That Genie is not going back in the bottle -- maybe they should change their business models instead.Letter To Iran
Just wait till everyone is using i2p. Then the RIAA can't really do anything about it.
On that note I agree with the assertion this letter raises that the RIAA and similar groups are only intrested in the law when it suits them. When it doesn't they either disregard it or spend tons of money to buy our congressmen so they can have it changed.
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
I still don't know why people like P2P applications so much. They are begging to get busted due to them waving a 'looky here at my copyrighted files' flag publicly.
USENET is still superior: Anonymous uploading of files can be done. Downloads are usually extremely fast & won't be noticed by the RIAA or whoever else is interested. And, reviews ("virus!", "bad sample rate", "wrong file", "goatse.cx warning", etc..) of uploaded files are there to be looked at before choosing to download them.
P2P, bah. There are plenty of USENET front-ends that make finding files much easier and faster to get.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
Did anyone else find this rebuttal just rambling and boring? He didn't do a lot of rebutting, just yammering all over the map about things only tangentially related to the topic.
Hello...he is a college professor. Did you go to college? College professors never actually say anything useful.
I am not reading the rebuttal. I just picked up a syllabus and I will show up for the exams.
The RIAA companies stole the public domain. They bribed the politicians to pass laws that indefinitely extend the copyright period on all published materials since the first third of the 20th century.
Under the legal principal that creates the authority of copyright protection, artistic materials must become part of the public domain after a set period of time. Bribing politicians to continously extend this period on materials that have reached the limit of their copyright is stealing from the public. It's like agreeing to pay a certain amount for an item only to find that the seller has doubled the price on the day that last payment is due... extending the number of payments that you have to make for another fifty years into the future.
And they haven't done this just once; they have done it repeatedly. Which establishes a pattern of confirmed criminal behavior in a court of law. And confirmed criminals don't get to decide what the laws are going to be for everyone else.
No civilized people or government should stand for this.
When we copy and freely distribute, we are reclaiming what has been stolen from us already. Reclaiming it from the people who have committed the biggest crime in artistic history; the theft of the public domain.
It must be pointed out over and over again:
The RIAA has no legal, moral, or ethical authority to call anyone criminals.
Plain and simple in any culture, at any time.
Music artists and the RIAA are seen as hypocrites hawking anti-establishment messages and then looking for special rights, powers, and protection from the establishment to maintain their empire.
I never realized how fundamental this is to the RIAA's "problems" of the day. On one hand, they actively record, promote and profit from gangsta rap which doesn't just talk about killing policemen and living the "bling-bling" life, it's practically propaganda for it.
And then they expect us to listen when they tell us not to steal copies of music? That's like Merimac Caverns at midnight calling the kettle black.
If you walk into a police station with outstanding warrants against you, complaining of a mugging, the cops are going to catch you first before they go after the mugger.
How many times have we read about pot growers who call in cops to complain of a burglary? And guess what? The cops catch them first.
If the RIAA is complaining of a crime, they must make sure that they themselves are innocent of such.
He never received any royalties. At first he just figured his recordings weren't selling (that's what they told him--how should he know any different--they do all the bookkeeping and tracking of sales!). Later he found out his recordings were indeed selling like hotcakes and he should have been receiving substantial royalty payments every quarter.
Despite repeated promises from Dorian to get the situation resolved "real soon now", he never did receive a nickel, and it turns out that (according to him) just not paying royalties at all was essentially Dorian's policy. While all their big name recording artists (in the classical music world) were wondering where their royalty checks were, the company principals were busy building & buying million dollar homes in various exotic locations around the world . . .
According to my friend, this sort of treatment is more or less the norm in the recording industry. They give you sales records that you strongly suspect are doctored or just plain wrong (but how do you prove it?), pay you royalties 1/10 or 1/4 what you have good reason to believe you should be getting (again, how do you prove it?), pay you occasionally instead of quarterly (per the contracdt), or just "forget" to pay you altogether until you pester them repeatedly, then pay some small amount to keep you quiet.
He says that as near as he can tell, Dorian really didn't know how much they owed people. But of course there is a BIG reward to them for being so incompetent . . . if they were organized and competent they would have to fork over the royalties. But with "gosh, we're so disorganized around here!" and a stupid grin, it all works out for the best . . . for them.
See Dorian's web site and some articles about their bankruptcy: 1 2 3.
Incidentally, the same friend says that music royalties are indeed his largest single source of income. But--royalties from sheet music, music books, and music-related books, NOT recordings.
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.
-
Surprised this hasn't already been posted:
Courtney Love Does the Math
Fantastic article about how RIAA appears to the Artistry
(Link to GCache to avoid slashdotting)
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
When radio was introduced, they fought long and hard, and they weren't the RIAA yet, to make sure music never got played on it under the argument "people will just listen to their favorite songs on the radio! We'll never sell another record again!"
Instead, the radio made them more money than they could have imagined.
When recordable cassette tapes were released, they again fought long and hard to try and make them illegal, because "people will just record their favorite songs off of the radio (which we once said was evil, but never-mind our old argument)! We'll never sell another album again!"
Again, same issue, nothing bad happened to them.
Now it's file sharing will make people never buy albums again! Odd, there's still a LOT of albums being sold, all over the world, and for the longest time they couldn't "prove" any damage because they were breaking all sorts of sales records and forecasts... until they finally raised the forecasts up so high, in the middle of an economic recession, that there was no way they would ever reach those numbers. They artificially made "lost sales" by saying how they didn't meet predictions, and that was only done by raising forecasts beyond any reasonable number.
And the RIAA has only themselves to blame, really. They turned down the idea of digital distribution in the first place, figuring no one would go for it. Then the file sharing programs hit, most notably Napster; then they gave Napster world attention by suing Napster and making the suit public on news broadcasts and such. Had there been no suit or at least no publicity on the suit, millions upon millions of people who now use file sharing programs might never have even known they existed. Joe Average Internet User certainly wouldn't have known about Napster, Kazaa, etc. without that world-wide attention the RIAA gave to file sharing programs.
And, in a bit of a blast of my own personal taste against the RIAA, it also doesn't help that 99.9999999999% of the music their labels put out is absolute shit, either. Certainly the true lost sales couldn't have happened because every new band they put forth is a "me too!" band, all sounding alike and all sucking just as equally, right?
The RIAA made their bed, by their own mistakes, now they can lie in it while I support the non-RIAA artists I enjoy by legally buying my music off of iTunes (when that has what I want) or buying their CDs at smaller stores that cater to my tastes.
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.