Interesting People mailing list archives
more on RIAA lawsuit : How news is made
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 14:19:41 -0400
------ Forwarded Message From: Patrick Ross <Pross () pff org> Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 13:27:22 -0400 To: <dave () farber net> Subject: RE: [IP] RIAA lawsuit : How news is made As a veteran of college and professional journalism, I don't see the problem with this. The RIAA answered reporters' questions and issued a press release. CEA, EFF, Public Knowledge, etc., all issue "press releases" and hold "press conferences." Often, those conferences are available only to reporters (is that where you get the "closed door" reference from?). And this transcript, as stated at the bottom, was distributed widely for attribution, so it's hardly like this information wasn't to be revealed. If a student reporter's story was one-sided, it's because he or she didn't follow up with others after participating in this press conference. Actually, I saw a number of college newspaper stories linked in blogs, etc., where students were quoted saying the suits were ridiculous. Criticize RIAA all you want over suits or business practices, but what they did here seems not only reasonable but helpful. -----Original Message----- From: owner-ip () v2 listbox com [mailto:owner-ip () v2 listbox com] On Behalf Of David Farber Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005 1:14 PM To: Ip Subject: [IP] RIAA lawsuit : How news is made ------ Forwarded Message From: "Sean C. Sheridan" <scs () CampusClients com> Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 12:43:39 -0400 To: <dave () farber net> Subject: RIAA lawsuit : How news is made This "press conference" and the associated "Press release" have created a number of one sided articles in college papers across the country. Here is the transcript from a closed door meeting between the president of the RIAA and a group of college student reporters. Available at: http://www.cpnewslink.com/static/20051304riaatranscript.doc Do you have any comments? Is there anything you'd like to convey to the student reporters? Are there any experts on the list who would be willing to answer further questions from college student reporters? ----------------------- ----------------------- Transcript: CPNewslink Online Press Conference Cary Sherman, President of the Recording Industry Association of America Wednesday, April 13, 2005 3:15 p.m. EST moderator: OK. Thank you, everyone, for coming to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s CPNewsLink newsmaker conference today. moderator: We are pleased to welcome as our CPNewsLink guest this afternoon Mr. Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The RIAA's member companies are responsible for creating, manufacturing, or distributing 90 percent of all legitimate sound recordings sold in the United States. moderator: As you all are likely aware, yesterday -- in response to an emerging epidemic of music theft on a specialized, high-speed university computer network known as Internet2 -- the RIAA, on behalf of the major record companies, announced plans to file copyright infringement lawsuits against 405 students at 18 different colleges across the country. moderator: The full press release, with a list of schools with students involved, is available at http://www.cpwire.com/archive/2005/4/12/1816.asp moderator: Mr. Sherman, welcome. cary_sherman_riaa: Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to participate in this online chat. I look forward to taking your questions but will first make just a few opening remarks. Over the past two years, we have worked very constructively with the university community, improving educational efforts at colleges across the country, expanding partnerships between schools and legal online services and providing a clearinghouse for expertise on technological anti-piracy solutions. We have made tremendous progress, but we are now facing a new, emerging epidemic of music theft on a specialized, high-speed university computer network known as Internet2. Unfortunately, through the use of a file-sharing application known as i2hub, Internet2 is increasingly becoming the network of choice for students seeking to steal copyrighted songs and other works on a massive scale. Quite simply, this special, high-speed Internet technology designed for important academic research has been hijacked for illegal purposes. Students who choose to engage in this illegal behavior should know that they are not anonymous. There are consequences for unlawful uses of this specialized network. We have built a strong relationship with university administrators in recent years, and our request to them now is to not let this incredible technology, Internet2, become a lawless zone where the rules donĀ¹t apply. With that, I am happy to take your questions. moderator: Let's begin with the question that's on everyone's mind... moderator: Your organization is making significant news today. Why has the RIAA chosen to pursue users of the Internet2 network as part of its anti-piracy efforts? And why now? moderator: <Q>Your organization is making significant news today. Why has the RIAA chosen to pursue users of the Internet2 network as part of its anti-piracy efforts? And why now? cary_sherman_riaa <A>Internet2 is an amazing network that holds great promise. We can't let it be hijacked for illegal purposes from the outset. The use of i2hub for music piracy on Internet2 is something that needs to be addressed immediately, before bad habits take hold. That's why we decided to act quickly -- to let everyone know that illegal file-trading on Internet2 is not safe from detection. By getting out the message early, we're hoping we can keep Internet2 from suffering the same fate that the Internet suffered with the explosive growth of illegal file-sharing. moderator: OK, now we'll turn it over to the journalists for some questions. Participants, when asking a question, please state your name, your school name and your newspaper name at the front of your question. moderator: And now we will take our first question... <Q>Chris Gaerig, Michigan Daily, University of Michigan. The RIAA says that it has identified students at 140 other schools. Do you plan on charging these students as well? If so, when, and is there any possibility for these marked students to avoid such lawsuits? cary_sherman_riaa <A>We are sending the information about infringements at these 140 schools to the president of each university -- to let them know that they have a problem on their campus, and to encourage them to do something about it. Chances are we will not take further action against these particular infringements, but we're reserving the right to do so. In any event, we will certainly take action against future infringements. <Q>Dan Duray, The Dartmouth, Dartmouth College: Is there a list available with the names of the 140 schools that have had letters sent to their presidents informing them of i2hub activity, but haven't had lawsuits brought against any of their students? cary_sherman_riaa <A>We're not making the list of the 140 schools public. This is intended to be a private communication to the president of the university to alert him/her to the fact that there is an i2hub infringement problem on their campus. <Q>Nikki Buskey, University of Texas, Daily Texan News: How did you choose which universities and which students would be targeted by the lawsuits? cary_sherman_riaa <A>We chose targets based on the egregiousness of the infringement. There was one user who was offering 13,600 MP3 files. You can be sure that user became a target. Similarly, where we had a large number of infringements at a school, the students at that school were more likely to be targeted. <Q>Jennifer Kulig, The Burr, Kent State University: How does the RIAA detect Internet2 users? cary_sherman_riaa <A>For obvious reasons, we don't reveal that information. <Q>Sheyla Asencios, The Valencia Source, Valencia Community College: What other illegally shared files are these students being sued for, or is music theft the only one? cary_sherman_riaa <A>RIAA lawsuits involve music only. However, the MPAA has announced that it is also filing separate lawsuits for the theft of movies. <Q>Steve Santulli, The Hoya, Georgetown University: What are the exact charges being filed against these students, and what sort of punishment can they expect? cary_sherman_riaa <A>The exact charge is for direct copyright infringement. It carries a minimum penalty of $750 per work infringed. For a serious downloader (or uploader), that can add up to a lot of money. But we routinely settle these cases at far less -- on average in the $3500-4500 range -- for those who work with us to resolve these cases quickly. If we have to litigate the case, or if the infringement is especially egregious, the settlement amount could be higher. <Q>John Scruggs, The Daily Helmsman, University of Memphis: How much is RIAA spending to fight copyright infringement on college and university computer networks? cary_sherman_riaa <A>Suffice it to say that this is not a profit-making venture. But it's money we need to spend to educate users that uploading and downloading on p2p networks is illegal and carries risk. <Q>Dan Duray, The Dartmouth, Dartmouth College: You have limited your lawsuits to only 18 schools and 25 students per school, though it seems as though the RIAA has evidence of much greater i2hub activity. Do you intend to bring about further lawsuits in the near or distant future? cary_sherman_riaa <A>We will definitely be bringing additional actions in the future. It is possible that some of these infringements could be targeted in future lawsuits, but it's a little more likely that we'll bring actions against newer infringements. People who continue to engage in illegal uploading and downloading after they've learned that the use of i2hub on internet2 for this purpose is illegal are appropriate targets in future rounds. <Q>Dave Benoit, Boston College, BC Heights. Should universities work to set up contracts with companies or programs in which the cost is covered by universities, or tuition, and students are able to legally obtain music on their computers? And are measures being taken in this direction? cary_sherman_riaa <A>Absolutely. So far, 44 schools have done deals with legitimate online music services so they can offer their students a legal way to get music. Some students have complained that their tuition or student fees shouldn't be used for music. Yet virtually every school provides cable TV service in their dorms, and the subscription for cable TV is included in the students' room and board fees. The President of Penn State conducted focus groups on campus and found that students felt it was more important to have access to music than TV! Why, then, shouldn't universities include music in student fees, just as they include TV service, health club fees and lots of other recreational activities? <Q>Katy Knapp, University of New Mexico, Daily Lobo. How much money does the recording industry actually lose from illegal downloading? cary_sherman_riaa <A>We have not attempted to quantify the actual losses due to file-sharing, because there are so many variables. We've seen estimates from third parties ranging from $700 million to several billion per year in the US alone. But the impact is very clear: songwriters getting half the royalties they used to, artists being dropped from label rosters, new artists not getting signed, thousands of layoffs, thousands of record stores closed. People think of artists are uniformly rich, but that's just not the case. For every Britney, there are thousands of unknown artists working their way up, CD plant workers, marketing people, delivery people, accountants, graphic designers, studio engineers, background musicians, vocalists -- it goes on and on. <Q>Jim Rogers, University of Missouri-Columbia, The Maneater: Is the RIAA considering action against Internet2 itself, rather than simply users of the network? cary_sherman_riaa <A>We have no problem with Internet2. It is a neutral network that is capable of outstanding beneficial uses. It just happens to be being misused by some file-sharers who think it's a convenient way to steal music. We hope to work with Internet2 to see if there are technical steps that can be taken to reduce the vulnerability to abuse of the network. <Q>Katy Moore, John Brown University, The Threefold Advocate: What's the average number of illegal files that these students posses? cary_sherman_riaa <A>The users sued today had an average of 2300 MP3 files (and about 3900 total files). The largest user had 13,600 MP3s. <Q>Dan Duray, The Dartmouth, Dartmouth College: In terms of the long-term goal of the RIAA of ending illegal file sharing, how effective do you see today's lawsuits being? cary_sherman_riaa <A>A lot of our efforts are designed to educate the public -- and students in particular -- that file-sharing without permission is illegal and risky. These lawsuits are getting a lot of publicity, which means that the message will get out far and wide. That's an important component of the effort to persuade users to migrate from the illegal services to the legitimate online services --which are offering more and more content (over a million tracks already), at all different price points, with guaranteed quality, without fear of viruses, spyware, adware, or lawsuits! <Q>Nick Nance, Tarrant County College, The Collegian: Why have college students become the primary target of your organization when they are not the only population group engaging in file sharing? cary_sherman_riaa <A>College students are not the primary target. Of the lawsuits brought to date, we've sued a relatively small percentage of students as compared to the general public. Today's lawsuits are different in that we focused on i2hub, which is uniquely available on college campuses. Hence the focus on students in this round only. <Q>Taylor Long, The Hofstra Chronicle, Hofstra University: does the RIAA plan on doing anything other than sue people and write letters in an effort to stop illegal downloading? cary_sherman_riaa <A>The primary response to illegal file-sharing is to offer legitimate alternatives that consumers prefer. And that's what the industry has been focused on most. There are dozens of legal services now offering everything from a la carte downloads to subscriptions; kiosks in retail stores (like Starbucks); the new DualDisc format for physical products (CD on one side, DVD on the other); extra songs on CDs that can be downloaded from the Internet; and on and on. Record companies are licensing their content on as many different online platforms as they can. It's in support of those initiatives that we're also pursuing education, enforcement and efforts like our work with the higher education community. There isn't going to be a silver bullet that's going to solve this problem. It requires a multi-pronged approach. <Q>Pav, SUNY Purchase. How do you feel about the establishment of Creative Commons licenses, where artists gain more control over how the rights of their music. If such licenses were to pick up steam and become more popular, and if artists take a firmer hold onto their own individual rights over their music, how will the RIAA respond? cary_sherman_riaa <A>We think the Creative Commons license is a fine idea and we support it. If an artist wants to control his/her own rights, that's fine too. This is all about choice: An artist should be able to decide how to market his or her work -- not Grokster or some other p2p service who builds a business on giving away someone else's property. Artists who think that p2p can benefit their careers by giving them exposure should be free to distribute their music on p2p. But artists who don't think like that shouldn't be forced to give their music away because Grokster has decided for them. <Q>John Scruggs, The Daily Helmsman, University of Memphis: Is the RIAA making headway in curbing illegal file sharing on college and university campuses around the country? cary_sherman_riaa <A>Yes. This is certainly a challenging problem, and it's not going to go away overnight, probably not ever. The idea is to get the problem sufficiently under control so that legitimate commerce can survive. It's like physical piracy. We're never going to eliminate it; there will always be vendors selling counterfeit CDs on street corners. But we work hard to keep the problem sufficiently contained that it doesn't frustrate investment in new artists and new music. We need to get to that same point online. We've come a very long way. Think of what p2p was like 2 years ago -- with exponential growth of p2p and no end in sight. The problem is far more contained now, and third-party studies show that even though p2p has increased again in recent months, it is still below the levels it was at before we started the lawsuits in September 2003. <Q>Taylor Long, The Hofstra Chronicle, Hofstra University: What do you see for the future of downloading music online: where would you like to see it go? Where do you think it will go? cary_sherman_riaa <A>I think digital distribution of music is just beginning, and it's going to get a whole lot larger than it is right now. But let's not focus just on downloads. True, that's the most popular model right now. But I think users are going to really gravitate toward subscription services as they learn more about them. For a single monthly fee, they get the opportunity to listen to any song they want whenever they want. More and more people are beginning to subscribe to such services. It's a little like cable TV -- which started slowly, but then became very big once people understood what it offered. moderator: Mr. Sherman, any closing remarks? cary_sherman_riaa: I wish I had more time to answer all the excellent questions posed in this chat. It's obvious that you want information, and I'm delighted that you have an interest in hearing our side of this debate. The bottom line is that we all have something in common -- a love of music. The question is how will the interests of creating more and more diverse music be best served? We've got the most vibrant music community in the world in the US (just like we do movies, and software, all of which are encouraged by the rewards promised by copyright law). We should be doing everything we can to allow the marketplace to work here -- to get consumers more music, in more innovative ways, and to make sure that the creators get rewarded for giving us their gift. Respecting the property rights of creators is the key, and that's why we've taken the steps we have. Thanks for listening. moderator: This concludes today's newsmaker conference with Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The conference is brought to you on CPNewsLink, a joint service of College Publisher and Collegiate Presswire. moderator: On behalf of the RIAA, thank you for attending, and thank you for your interest. And, on behalf of all the college journalists attending this event, and those reading about it, our thanks go out to Mr. Sherman for taking time out of his busy schedule to chat with us today. moderator: If you have additional questions about this story, please direct them to Jonathan Lamy, Jenni Engebretsen or Amanda Hunter of the RIAA at (202) 775-0101. moderator: Additionally, for your use in writing a story, we will be sending a full transcript of this event over Collegiate Presswire to all of our subscribing newspapers within the next hour, and we'll be posting a copy on the front page of the CPNewsLink website shortly thereafter. (http://www.cpnewslink.com) moderator: As a reminder, we will be hosting additional CP NewsLink newsmaker events throughout the upcoming year, and will be e-mailing you notification of them prior to the next event. moderator: We hope you enjoyed this chat, and trust that it provided you with some insight and perspectives into this issue for your use in writing stories on this topic. moderator: Thank you, once again, for attending today's CP NewsLink conference. moderator: Good bye, everyone! ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as pross () pff org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
Current thread:
- more on RIAA lawsuit : How news is made David Farber (Apr 14)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- more on RIAA lawsuit : How news is made David Farber (Apr 14)