America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilisation in between. - Oscar Wilde
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RIAA chief wails about SOPA opposition
THE CHAIRMAN of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has penned an opinion in the New York Times in which he moans about the opposition to the SOPA and PIPA legislation.
Chairman and CEO Cary Sherman made his feelings clear in the opinion headlined "What Wikipedia Won't Tell You", saying that the web firms held back the RIAA crafted legislation by being untruthful and overstating their case.
"Policy makers had recognized a constitutional (and economic) imperative to protect American property from theft, to shield consumers from counterfeit products and fraud, and to combat foreign criminals who exploit technology to steal American ingenuity and jobs," he wrote.
"They knew that music sales in the United States are less than half of what they were in 1999, when the file-sharing site Napster emerged, and that direct employment in the industry had fallen by more than half since then, to less than 10,000," he claimed.
He argued that in the face of these job and economic losses policy makers set about creating rules, which, although he admitted they might not have been perfect, were at least something.
"While no legislation is perfect, the Protect Intellectual Property Act (or PIPA) was carefully devised, with nearly unanimous bipartisan support in the Senate, and its House counterpart, the Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA), was based on existing statutes and Supreme Court precedents," he added. "But at the 11th hour, a flood of e-mails and phone calls to Congress stopped the legislation in its tracks. Was this the result of democracy, or demagoguery?"
According to Sherman it was the latter, and he said that the internet protests were based on misinformation, and not real consideration of their impact.
"Misinformation may be a dirty trick, but it works," he said. "Consider, for example, the claim that SOPA and PIPA were 'censorship,' a loaded and inflammatory term designed to evoke images of crackdowns on pro-democracy Web sites by China or Iran."
Firms including Google and Wikipedia spread this information, he added, through highlighting protests and bandying the word "censorship" about. Sherman accused internet firms of spreading misinformation and exploiting their size and influence, implying that you could never accuse entertainment industry corporations or cartel lobbyists of that.
"The hyperbolic mistruths, presented on the home pages of some of the world's most popular Web sites, amounted to an abuse of trust and a misuse of power," he added.
Projecting somewhat, he claimed, "When Wikipedia and Google purport to be neutral sources of information, but then exploit their stature to present information that is not only not neutral but affirmatively incomplete and misleading, they are duping their users into accepting as truth what are merely self-serving political declarations."
This muddied the debate, said Sherman, and he wailed that the internet firms ruined what could have been two very good bills. He suggested that they might like to come forward and work on other rules to help stop America from sliding into an entertainment industry recession.
"Perhaps this is naïve, but I'd like to believe that the companies that opposed SOPA and PIPA will now feel some responsibility to help come up with constructive alternatives. Virtually every opponent acknowledged that the problem of counterfeiting and piracy is real and damaging. It is no longer acceptable just to say no," he said.
"We all share the goal of a safe and legal Internet. We need reason, not rhetoric, in discussing how to achieve it," he concluded. µ
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"Consider, for example, the claim that SOPA and PIPA were 'censorship,' a loaded and inflammatory term..."
Source: The Inquirer (http://s.tt/15C2h)
Is not 'piracy' also a loaded and inflammatory term? Should it not be 'copyright infringement'?
"He suggested that they might like to come forward and work on other rules to help stop America from sliding into an entertainment industry recession."
I suggest they stop producing loads of bullcrap that comes out of the Hollywood studios and record labels to get them out of recession instead.
Maybe when the product is good again the people can be bothered to buy records and watch movies.
RIAA loves you why all the hate? We are only trying to protect what is ours. No one is forcing you to buy our stuff, and plus you know it's ours why are you taking it without paying for it?
You demand mandatory prison terms of 5 years for uploading a single track recorded by Michael Jackson, but the doctor who killed him (through negligence, incompetence, or malice) was sentenced to only 4 years.
MONEY IS NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN A HUMAN LIFE.
And I will not believe Corporations are people until Texas executes a Corporation.
Sell your good product at a reasonable price without onerous restrictions through a very convenient distribution channel.
It works for every other friggin' product it's been applied to; what's your problem?
Oh, boo-hoo, we don't have a music / movie monopoly anymore, poor pitiful us...
Suck it up, buttercup. The world, she is a-changin', and you could be making up your imaginary losses in real dollars by selling on volume. IF you have the balls to abandon your monopoly and play fair.
Won't do it? Don't expect me (or any of the other technologists who think you're being ridiculous) to help you, then, you're not ready to be helped.
The RIAA and SOPA can both go suck it.
http://bit.ly/dI3hcF
Politicians try to make laws about things they know nothing about. They "think" they can write a law to take care of one thing but they have no clue about the problems it will cause for other issues. My understanding of the laws is that their goal is to stop piracy of music, movies, and software. What about logos, images of products, etc. If you run a site that promotes, for an example, Microsoft, Nvida, ATI, and Intel, are you suppose to get written permission to use the logos? Technically, yes. The problem is, no one does. And these companies don't seem to care. We are selling their stuff. The stuff comes from their distributers. Because we sell their stuff and support their stuff we are generating them more profits. That is why they don't care. But let's get a lawyer involved. You know they were hoping for these laws to pass. Most of them don't have websites so they have nothing to worry about. But all of the small businesses that they can screw and take every little penny from is how they will fatten their wallet. They know we can't afford to fight them. I am only 31 and I have seen SO MANY laws go through local, state, and federal goverment that are completely stupid. I am sick of this. Write the law correctly or don't write it at all. And if you write it, make sure you get the geeks involved so that if there are any problems because of how it is written, someone may be able to say - hey, fu**er, you're an idiot!
If Wikipedia is wrong, why doesn't he just edit it?
Sure, he can't change the editorial coming from Wikipedia as an organisation, but they can't change the press releases coming from the RIAA. He can however change their pages on SOPA and PIPA and assure that they hold objective truths.
Of course, it's objective truth that he's so frightened of people seeing..
So many things in this to disagree with. I think I can summarise most by saying that everything he accuses Google and Wikipedia of (if true) come right from the RIAA playbook. Twisting the truth and making things seem worse than they are, wonder who does that a lot in the claims about piracy. Claims he cannot resist re-making in the piece.
Second the idea that SOPA was well thought out legislation. Obviously not, when it was pointed to legislators that the proposed law would break the government's own cyber-security recommendations on secure DNS, they all acted with surprise saying we are not geeks. These are the idiots crafting well thought out Internet legislation, the ones who have no clue don't have no intension of getting a clue as that would involve talking to geeks. Give me a break.