Essential reading on the hypocrisy of the recording industry

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Technology
April 15th, 2003 • 8:32 pm

A post to the “Interesting People” mailing list by Tim O’Reilly forwards a rant by musician George Ziemann regarding the fundamental hypocrisy of the recording industry’s claims that file downloads have been the primary cause of the recent decline in music sales.

The Music Piracy Myth” by George Ziemann (as quoted by Tim O’Reilly)

My current consternation comes in the form of a letter from my
congressional representative, who states that “In 2001, record sales
were down 10 percent because of unauthorized music downloads…

Yes, sales were down. Other than that obvious fact, there is no
empirical DATA to suggest that downloading is the cause of the problem.
I’ve asked the RIAA. In fact, I would go so far as to say I have
relentlessly taunted them in hopes of a reasonable explanation. They
offer none.

Even more important is George Ziemann’s in-depth analysis of the RIAA’s claims:

RIAA’s Statistics Don’t Add Up to Piracy by George Ziemann

The RIAA is looking for pirates. They need to look in the mirror. The biggest threat to the recording industry is that they long ago dismissed as insignificant the two elements without which there would be no recording industry — the music and the artists.

It’s a case of lies being hammered again and again until they become the “truth”. Now where have we heard this before?…

Very sad.


Comments are closed.

Leave a Reply

Comments are closed.