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RIAA CEO Hopes SOPA Protests Were a "One-Time Thing"
hapworth writes "After posting a controversial op-ed in The New York Times saying Wikipedia and Google 'misinformed' the public about SOPA and PIPA, Cary Sherman, CEO of the RIAA said in an interview yesterday that he hopes the SOPA protests were a 'one-time experience.' He also said that Wikipedia and Google users were duped into thinking SOPA was a bad bill because they assume "if it comes from these sources, it must be true." In another hilarious comment, Sherman blames the Internet for making it impossible for Congress to get out its side of the story, and for not spreading information with the same 'clarity and integrity' of broadcast journalists."
That's easy enough to accomodate. Stop pressing for draconian censorship legislation and this will never happen again.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Sorry, Mr RIAA CEO, it wasn't a one time deal. As long as you morons try passing this crap, we'll keep protesting. And the protests will only get bigger and bigger.
The answer is very simple. Knock it off with your attempts to control the internet.
go fuck yourself, Cary.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
From what I recall, those broadcast journalists didn't even cover the bills. I'm sure they would greatly prefer the internet doing the same.
...it was that the public was PROPERLY informed for the *very first* time.
In other words, the public *wasn't* misinformed on these ideas for the very first time.
And look at the amount of effort it took. It proves the posit that we've all been saying: corporate monopoly of information is one of the worst things that can happen to a free society. There is no real marketplace of ideas in the U.S. This is one of the few times in scores of years there has been anywhere near a fair debate on an important subject, and certain players had to scream LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME to get it.
That's not how you spell "I hope every nerve ending in your body is permanently made to think it's on fire and you live forever", but yeah, the entire Internet is saying this.
Fuck. You.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
of how weak his own position is that his only response is the cry foul and claim everyone who opposed the bill had been misled. We weren't misled. We knew exactly why this bill was such a horrible piece of legislation. If anyone, it was him and the bills backers who were deluded in thinking that people would not get pissed off by such horribly half-baked legislation. We're talking about something that would have essentially made him and his friends judge and jury on copyright infringement online, will little to no recourse for the accused to defend themselves, and even then only after the fact.
We've seen how well they handled even lesser power in these matters, between frivolous DMCA takedown notices (sometimes on stuff they didn't even own the rights to), and more recently the case of a company claiming birdsong was in violation of its copyrights. The bill demonstrated a blatant disregard for internet security, by potentially crippling DNSSEC. And their response was simply, "Well, you're just going to have to scratch that plan and come up with something else, now aren't you?"
Given their practical disdain for how the internet works, and a plethora of precedents demonstrating they will not hesitate to abuse any power given them, we simply must have been misled into believing they didn't have our best interests at heart. I find this patronizing, "You just don't worry about it, we know what's best for you." attitude completely offensive. I'll be watching for the next time they try and slip garbage like this through, and you can be damn sure I'll be opposed to it then. Don't call me misled when you're lying through your teeth to me. I don't take kindly to it, and I would hope no one else would either. I'd love to see this inane series of statements by him blow up in his face and lead to even greater opposition next time he and his friends try to force something like SOPA down our throats.
We're Americans. We know that practically everyone in politics is lying to us whenever they open their mouth. That's not news. I'm not sure why Cary Sherman expects a free pass on this issue... you've got the lobbying money, get in there and play hardball like everyone else.
Cary's problem is that he doesn't have the money. Music is a pathetically small business compared to other media...only a couple $billion/year. The movie industry is measured in tens of $billions/year, and so are the videogame and TV industries. The very quiet, very boring print industry behemoth is over one $trillion/year. (If that surprises you, compare Lady Gaga's wealth to JK Rowling's. People spend more money on books in one summer than has ever been spent on music ever.)
What the RIAA expected was for every other media industry to follow their lead in drawing a line in the sand and fighting digital delivery and taking a hard-line stance on piracy. They would lead the charge and thought eventually the others would back them up with real resources later. MPAA stuck with them for a little while, but the other industries starting hedging their bets and seeing where the technology goes. Oops.
SOPA can't be made permanent by a Supreme Court ruling. It's merely legislation, and legislation can always be repealed. The way to remove SOPA is to elect people who will repeal it. Even Constitutional Amendments can be repealed, although that is fairly uncommon (but it has happened at least a few times).
In any event, no fighting is required. Yes, it may be hard to remove the people in power without guns if they are entrenched in the system, but all you technically need are votes.
Now if they start seriously cheating on the elections...and I don't mean one or two contested elections... that's the time to start consider the guns, because then, there is almost no recourse but that. Just remember that the French Revolution started with the best of intentions, and ended up causing rivers of blood both in France and elsewhere. Let's not get too hasty in our appeal to the gun, even if we should defend our right to have that ability.