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"We all share the goal of a safe and legal Internet," he wrote in closing. "We need reason, not rhetoric, in discussing how to achieve it."

The time for that was 10 years ago. RIAA needs to start the conversation with "So this is how we have joined the digital age and are leaving CDs and that business model behind". Then we can have a reasonable discussion, not even asking for an apology for shoddy formats (CDs) that had to be replaced every 5 years.

Well put and summarized! Good article...

The RIAA now officially has even less credibility than before (which wasn't much to begin with).

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!

Way to act like a mature responsible professional there Sherm.

Frankly though, I can understand. He's afraid. He's a living dinosaur, and he knows it. We don't need his kind anymore. Talented (and not so talented) artists can now, with reasonable cost, record, publish, and distribute their own material without any need to grovel to these massive multibillion dollar corporations. Buy some decent recording equipment, post some samples to YouTube, get a cheap shopping cart, tie it to your PayPal account, and start selling MP3's off your site.

The internet hasn't just made access to their stuff easier, it's made it easier for the average person to do what once required these massive studios. That's what they're really afraid of. That people will stop spending $10-$20 a ticket to see the latest blockbuster or buy the latest bubblegum pop cd, when they can get just as much enjoyment from content that is freely or cheaply, and legally available on the web. Just look at the success of web series like "The Guild". That's the real threat.

This is the kind of guy that could have some crazy idea like DVD region, that forbbids an American see asian movies and vice versa. This kind of control have long sliped from his fingers so he try to intimidate people. In his model even radio stations might be violating copyright, and here's the point, would be enough jail for everyone?

Well, adios ... and good riddance ... to the business model to which the RIAA still clings, even as it sinks.

The bottom line here is that this country needs to protect content and needs to ensure that innovators have the freedom to create without fear of free riding. Call it hypocrisy, call it being an advocate for artists, the name calling is not what matters here. We need to do everything we can in this country to ensure that theft of copyrighted work does not occur and that this country can be an example of intellectual property protection for the rest of the world.

Personally, I have solved the problem, I quit buying music and video's both online and off-line.

The music industry puts out a album on CD for $17 to $20, and usually there is only one decent song on the entire album.

And to copyright, ok, I have old 8-track, cassettes, can I convert them to CD or the next generation of electronic media, legally no, so it would appear that the industry by adopting new technology is bilking the public by providing the ability to legally convert that data. They pushed,8-track, casette, CD,DVD, Blue-Ray and more to come, and as the older equipment is phased out you music or video collection can no longer be enjoyed.

I feel for the Artists, they should be paid for their art, but management skims a lot of the money right off the top. You can bet that little man sherman rakes in six or better figures annually.

This piece is flawed and was written in poor judgement. While people may dislike Sherman, it doesn't mean that we can rewrite the laws just to favor the people we like ... though lobbyists and the USA's Congress seem to think otherwise.

Consider the following 2 paragraphs pulled from the article:

"Both acts also leave undefined what constitutes illegal content, though both required law enforcement agencies to take action based on complaints from alleged copyright holders, with no proof they own the copyright or that the "pirate" has violated them.

That constitutes not only censorship, but illegal search and seizure, conviction without trial and reversal of the assumption of innocence that is the basic tenet of our legal system."

Um ... nope.

First, this is not censorship. This is copyright infringement and "piracy" ... distribution of illegal copies of copyright protected material - a criminal action, whereby the alleged offender's assets and property can be seized, the alleged offender can be denied access to the property/assets to prevent tampering with evidence, and any possible legitimate activity/property/assets within the seized assets/property of the alleged offender falls under the category of "evidence."

For the people who might be thinking about how "unfair" or "unjust" this could be for the person whose legitimate assets/activity are caught up in this mess -
1. A good rule of thumb is - don't conduct business with people doing illegal things or allow people to do illegal things with or on your property/assets. If you don't do your research, then you weren't being a responsible business person. There are consequences. That's life.
2. Law enforcement persons would seize assets/property in this situation by order of a judge and only with overwhelming, legitimate reason and proof - not conjecture, suspicion, hearsay, or anything else people might believe from watching television and movies. And no, this justifying information that is presented to the judge is not going to be disclosed to the media journalists or bloggers ... or opinion writers, because of privacy laws, rights to fair trials, etc.

And there is also this law about "aiding and abetting a criminal or criminal act." If it can reasonably be demonstrated that a person or business knowingly permitted a criminal act (piracy) to continue with/on this person's/business' property/assets, then this person or business is committing a bunch of crimes, also. Consider also that "knowing a crime is being committed and failing to report this crime" is a crime in itself (though this can be difficult to prove in many cases, but not all). But this group's assets are still seizable and freezable.

And to be honest, if someone or some business owns the rights to something ... guess what - that person or business can do whatever with it, as long as it doesn't violate the rights of others. And we don't have the right to other people's property (the copyrighted material, as an example), so we either do without or pay what the copyright owner demands.

Maybe the artist or inventor should have chosen someone else to manage them and their work. If they feel as if they were (unfairly) exploited, then they have legal recourse in a court of law. Are any of these artists suing because they felt they were unfairly exploited? If not, then ... second ... there is no longer room for argument, here. [These artists, actors, whoever, can "say" what they want - but if they don't actually "do" anything about it (with all the money they're making from it), then their lack of real and genuine effort is no more than complacent acceptance of the status quo.]

Third. Think about it this way, also. If person A has something illegally, in other words, person A isn't allowed to have it in the first place, then person A cannot claim to have been violated with censorship. In a court of law, the judge will resolve all claims from all parties in "time sequence," starting from oldest to most recent. As soon as it is determined that person A illegally had the "thing," then person A no longer has any claim to having been violated by censorship because person A could not legally have done the act that was censored. Therefore, any notion of "censorship violation" is moot and dismissed. [If I have an illegal copy of the movie "Transformers" and you erase the file, no judge can award me damages for my "loss of the movie," because it was never legally mine, in the first place.]

Fourth. When there is "piracy" (possession of illegal copies of copyrighted material, whether for sale, distribution, etc.) being reported to the proper authorities, this means that a crime is being reported. A crime does not need to "violate" the person who reports it for the person to be permitted to report it to the authorities. In civil law, not criminal law, however, the person needs to demonstrate that damage was done. "Piracy" is a criminal act, not a violation of civil law, statute, code, etc. There's a big difference.

"Illegal content" means content that is illegal. If it is illegal, this means that a legislative body determined the definition, already. Not everything ought need to be spelled out.

And I didn't get into the other areas of this opinion piece that are flawed. This has already been too much.

This post has been edited by kabrophy: 10 February 2012 - 03:02 PM

kabrophy, on 10 February 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

The article spoke to the RIAA CEO's statements regarding the uproar by site owners and ISPs and their opposition to SOPA and PIPA. None of the sites or ISPs ever stated they wanted laws to be broken and copyrighted material to be used and/or traded illegally. SOPA's and PIPA's problems were that they were poorly written and were designed to give powers to law enforcement that are contrary to constitutional norms. If the owner of a storage building is jailed because one of his tenants houses illegal goods, it implies the storage owner has some obligation to know what's contained in the rented units. There is no legal requisite for that. And in many situations SOPA and PIPA allowed actions by law enforcement without court order; one of the primary tenets for a search and/or seizure in our current society.

It has always been that viewed that rights and freedoms were to outweigh the need for certain types of enforcement. The purpose is to prevent oppression, which once begun becomes a greater threat than the supposed crimes it sought to prevent.

sandkicker, on 10 February 2012 - 01:10 PM, said:

You bought the 8-Track, Cassette, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc. Fair use dictates that you should be able to make backup copies for the purpose of protecting your investment. The problem with backing up 8-Track and cassette is that there is motor noise that creeps through when trying to record and save in digital format. I have not tried one of those LP to CD recorders so I do not know if this problem was solved in that format.

I do agree that many new albums come with only one or two really good songs so a better way to purchase is a la carte. The price per song is higher but your music collection consists entirely of what you want.

Personally, I don't think I will buy another CD (unless its a greatest hits and I really, really like the artist.