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..."

Comments

Robin Hood

[fembots]

Is he saying stealing from thieves (or unethical businesses) is not so bad?

Re:Robin Hood

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he's saying people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Re:Robin Hood

[Tim5309]

I agree that this does seem like the standard "to steal from a thief is no crime" fallacy"

If you'll stop your members from stealing from my friends, and then study some history, maybe I can help you.

The professor's arguments are valid in that the recording industry has commited sins of its own against creativity, but to say that stealing music over I2 is therefore ok simply does not follow.

Re:Robin Hood

[Catamaran]

I agree that this does seem like the standard "to steal from a thief is no crime" fallacy"

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.

Re:Robin Hood

[MrBigInThePants]

What you say is true, however the RIAA are pretending to take the moral high ground here. Most of their arguments center on protecting artist's rights and being able to foster creativity.

While the theft is certainly illegal, and nobody I have read about says it is, the RIAA's position is exceptionally disingenuous for the reasons mentioned.
They argue that law and government should protect them with MORE (very important point) legislation and they have got much of it already. (DMCA) They argue that they should be able to breech people's privacy, destroy whole internet technologies and dictate to the electronics industry what they can and cannot produce.

They argue this because they pretend to defend the artist rights and musical freedom as they have always done. This is obviously wrong.

The question is not nearly as simple as you have made it out to be. It is not a question of "enforcement of current law", but far more insidious.

Having said all that, a great comment on mp3 theft:
"Stealing music is like taking candy from a...large, fat rich person."

Re:Robin Hood

[DecayCell]

No, he's merely saying that until the RIAA starts sticking to its standards, they're not going to get any help from him on his campus.
Fair enough, I believe.

Re:Robin Hood

[ashmedai]

Bingo. It's not that stealing is okay if it's from a thief. It's that it's really stupid for a morally bankrupt group to complain about every individual incidence of copyright infringement when they can't even prove the act deprived them of a potential sale they say they deserve on the basis of junk science and fabricated statistics. It's that the amount of lies and slander they propigate in attempt to sway public opinion in favor of their greed-motivated witch hunt is just plain horrific. And then there's the issue of the Orwellian legislation they push through with the help of the government that we're supposed to be able to trust to protect us from such things, as if Homeland Security wasn't edging towards a police state already on its own.

Re:Robin Hood

[kizzbizz]

Is he saying stealing from thieves (or unethical businesses) is not so bad?

Not quite. He is merely saying that if the RIAA want's to enlist the aid of colleges to combat piracy (Which is CLEARLY the intent of the RIAA's original letter), they need to clean up their act first.

Speficially, the Professors closing coment may sound like he is trying to argue that stealing from the "bad guy" is acceptable, this is a false assumption. He is merely stating that if they want HIS help, they should start holding up their end of the bargin when it comes to the recording artists, nothing more.

Re: Robin Hood

[Alwin Henseler]

I don't think the end of the road is certain, but I'll bet it means curtailed development of entertainment in digital form.

Sure, the end of the road is pretty certain, and goes something like this:

• If content is digital, it can be copied easily.
• If it can be copied, it will be copied.
• If people want a copy, they can get a copy (and not pay, if they don't feel like it).
• The content producer can make money by selling physical media (with the content), licensing, online sales, whatever. If it's made cheaper, more media/licenses will be bought, but less profit per sale. If more expensive, more profit per sale, but smaller numbers sold. Optimum somewhere in between.
• DRM (+ lawyers) ultimately change nothing of the above, only serve to push the numbers a bit in one direction or another. Oh yeah, and
• DRM and lawyers add an additional cost for everybody.

So musicians will continue to make music, people will keep listening to whatever they like (and spend money on that, when they feel like it), some industry folks will keep trying to squeeze money from all this, DRM will continue to be broken, and some lawyers will receive fat paychecks. The most succesful businesses will be those that adapt to new circumstances.

And "stealing" only applies to physical items, not when dealing with all-digital content. Use "copyright infringment", "illegal copying" or "unauthorized distribution" instead. You don't 'own' an image, you may own some rights to decide who is allowed to copy that image, and under what conditions. These rights may vary from country to country, and aren't absolute either (see: fair use).

Oh and BTW: "illegal" is not the same as "wrong".

Re:Robin Hood

[Xyrus]

I would just like to remind people that this is COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, not THEFT.

Big difference.

~X~

Re:Robin Hood

[TheGratefulNet]

parent: good summary, short and sweet.

two things: moral high ground (riaa/mpaa are good guys; your college students are being bad, please stop them) and also the fact that colleged (and the legal system) should NOT be used to help protect one business' outdated sales model.

confusing morality with their profit stream IS the problem. please help to separate the two.

its fine to complain that your business is losing money. the buggywhip companies went thru that - and so will you, riaa/mpaa. could I suggest getting a NEW business model? laying off some of your staff? changing your price and distribution models?

its quite another thing to act all high and holy try to convince us that you are standing for Truth and The American Way. you're not. you're simply a business like all the rest - a business that is in dire need of a major revision.

if you want to complain about lost profits, STOP BRIBING CONGRESS AND LAWMAKERS! there, that'll save you more money than yelling at pimple-faced teenagers.

Re: Robin Hood

[NixLuver]

Hear, Hear!

The current music industry is a buggywhip plant asking the federal courts to pass laws making it illegal for Ford to sell Mustangs without buggywhips.

The traditional cost of media is largely distribution costs (if you believe the RIAA). The cost of distribution in electronic format is largely and essentially nil (I know the cost of bandwidth; but I could distribute 4000 copies of a 3 MB song per month for $16.95, or 4 tenths of a cent per copy). The largest costs associated with doing business in the digital format is covering all of the agreements with the traditional distribution services so that they can keep making and selling buggywhips regardless of their objective usefulness and value. As you say, the company that will out is the one that adjusts to the market and provides 1) a simple, pain-free process of acquisition, and 2) a cost that is low enough that copyright infringement is more trouble than it's worth. Who is going to go through the trouble of ripping and distributing songs that can be downloaded for, say, 25 cents?

Full text of rebuttal....

[gardyloo]

"I'm rubber, you're glue."

YAIA

[pdbogen]

(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.

Re:YAIA

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up, Hitler.

Re:YAIA

[ergo98]

I've never understood that rule - pointing out weaknesses gets YOU no points, it might remove his, but you won't win unless you can actually out-argue one of his points rather than just discrediting them

On the topic of discrediting, I think we should remember that Anonymous Cowards have been, historically, the perpetrators of countless GNAA recruitment campaigns, goatse stealth links, and ad hominem attacks. Anonymous Cowards have posted misogynist and anti-semitic attacks of horrifying proportions, and as a general rule are unsavoury characters.

So clearly your point has no foundation.

Re:YAIA

[Aaron England]

Never argue the opponents points, only point out his weaknesses.

You mean, kind of like what you just did with Prof. Dannenberg's argument?

Lacking Content

[Mathonwy]

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".

Robin Hood-Rebound.

[Anonymous Coward]

"No, he's saying people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

People who live in rubber houses shouldn't either.

Cop Killer: Brought to you by the RIAA

[MacDork]

I got my brain on hype.
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.

Re:Cop Killer: Brought to you by the RIAA

[AoT]

I forgot about that shit. I am going to go down load it now.

Uphill Battle

[DumbSwede]

Here is my take on why the MPAA and RIAA will fail in trying to realize all of their draconian measures. We are headed into a sea of entertainment choices, and while the MPAA and the RIAA would like to make sailing these seas a cash cow with DMCA, it seems unlikely that will succeed. The RIAA is screaming about shrinking revenues and blames piracy. Piracy is a partial answer to why RIAA revenues are not increasing at projected rates. Actually shrinking (yet) is debatable depending on whose numbers you use. But here is a better list of reasons the RIAA is no longer getting what it thinks are its just dues:

1. People have been use to getting free music for decades -- ever since the birth of radio.
2. 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.
3. 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?
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Some people prefer live music and think money paid for a live show is the only real compensation music artists should expect.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.

i2p will make this all moot

[gremlins]

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.

Exactly what the RIAA companies stole from us

[Simonetta]

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.

Re:Robin Hood-Ends of the Mark.

[senatorpjt]

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.