MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-05-04 |
| FROM | Dave Williams
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] RIAA attacking our culture, the American mind
|
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/30554.html
The RIAA's president Cary Sherman is lamenting that there's a lack of
civility in the debate over sharing the music we love. He's complaining
that people object to his effort to plant bombs in your computer. He
says such people are irrational.
The New York Times reveals the record companies are preparing a program
called "silent", which "Locks up a computer system for a certain
duration - minutes or possibly even hours - risking the loss of data
that was unsaved if the computer is restarted," the Times tells us. "It
also displays a warning about downloading pirated music."
This latest bombing campaign follows the RIAA's attempt in October to
get bombing prohibited from limited damages: a daring and unusual move
for a bomber. Bombers usually light a fuse and then run away, or fly
away at a very high altitude, but this bomber wants to return to the
scene of the crime and deny the victims their right to get recompense
for the destruction. That was the Berman Bill.
One other program can only be described as a kind of psychological "All
Your Base" campaign, only for real. It deletes all the MP3s it can find
on your computer so you have to buy the music again in DRM'd form. And
then your music will truly belong to them, because once the DRM noose is
around your neck, they only need to tighten it.
Sherman complains that when the Berman Bomb Act was introduced "you
couldn't get a rational dialogue going."
We think he's been lucky.
Cultural Identity
The extent of this assault on our valuable culture, when combined with
the the labels refusal to release its back catalogs, including works of
great artistic merit, is huge.
Look at what just one Register reader will be losing. My great
grandfather was born in 1870," he wrote to us.
"He learned to build crystal radio sets to listen to the earliest radio
broadcasts in the 1920's. He would invite the whole town of about 500
over to listen to them.
"My grandfather was born in 1899. He purchased one of the earliest tape
recorders to make copies of radio broadcasts for his friends in the late
1950s.
"My dad was born in 1924. He had a collection of 78's that he passed
around for many years until he died last year.
"And now I am using the Internet to assemble an MP3 collection of all
the tunes on all those LPs, cassette tapes and CD's that I've been
buying since 1959.
"I'll be damned in hell before I accept the notion that I and my
ancestors who love to listen to the audio arts are in any sense guilty
of anything that is illegal, wrong, evil, immoral or improper."
Can you imagine the value of that heritage? Then multiply it. The RIAA
is attacking the American mind, and controlling its finest cultural
exports oversees.
Imagine the loss if your library agreed only to keep a couple of hundred
books which were then only obtainable through a fee.
Then, when it's done here, it will continue to do so more aggressively
abroad.
Hilary's Rosen involvement in rewriting Iraqi's more liberal copyright
law will pave the way for her members to control the distribution of
Iraqi culture. Before too long, the new malls of Iraq will have
hypermarkets bulging with what small parts of homegrown culture the
record labels sees fit to offer, plus a few Tandoori McJob artists
groomed for success, with just perhaps a token Sunni or Kurdish artiste,
"I think there's one in the backroom but I have to go and get it" when
you go and ask for it in the hypermarket.
(Remarkably, India and France have remained in control of their visuals
despite similar pressures).
In parts of the world where sharing music isn't as frowned up as here,
the people generally look pretty happy, I'd say. And so you might
conclude that file sharing music encourages happiness. In these parts of
the world people party more, or party harder, or both, and the free flow
of their culture is demanded.
Why is this 'irrational', Bomber Sherman?
The RIAA's assault on our cultural identity - this includes refusing to
open the catalogs, as well as bombing or financially crippling
computer-using music lovers - is so deep that it's only a surprise that
someone hasn't bombed them back at ... (We'd give you the address here,
but the RIAA's website has just gone down again, and so it appears that
Phase I has been resumed.) ®
- Andrew Orlowski
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