RIAA's Cary Sherman says lawsuits were the only option
Cary Sherman offers no apologies and won't for a second concede that filing lawsuits against people who pilfered digital music from artists was ineffective. On the contrary, the president of the Recording Industry Association of America makes a case that chasing file sharers into court was the only option in 2003, during one of the darkest periods in the music industry's history.
"If you can go back to that time in your mind and remember that file sharing was growing at logarithmic pace," Sherman said referring to 2003, not long after file-sharing service Napster had triggered a music-swapping frenzy. "It was unbelievable how much infringement was going on and there was no sense that it was illegal. There were no legal cases or precedent, nothing to discourage people from this kind of behavior."
Source
_____________________________________________________
Wow! Cary's last party must have been a real dud if he suddenly felt the need to spout off about how he was right when no one gives a crap anymore...he said 2003...2003!...Cary its 2008 ! That was 5 years ago why the hell are you tooting your horn now?
And guess what Cary
The Record Industry testified to the U.S. Government that when the research and development of CD's was paid off from revenues the price of CD's would drop...YOU LIED TO THE U.S.GOVERNMENT.
People go to jail for that...kind of like what you did with those useless, meaningless lawsuits against the very people the Government sought to protect from price gouging...so I guess when you fell through on your promise to lower the price and your former customers found a work around you were probably crapping your designer jeans.
What does a CD cost you to produce, print and package?...about 2 bucks?
What are you charging for the CD?
$17?
$19?
$25?
What cut does the artist get?
5%?
Less?
Since the industry probably has them on a advance pay contract with a multi-album deal and making them in essence indentured servants they usually never are able to pay of the cash advance....they call it pimping in some circles Cary.
Let's continue...everyone else if the whole free world knew that the world wide web would be the new medium of choice for data and music but you failed to notice this..the whole world changed overnight and you were running to catch up...not like you didn't have the chance to take some of your grotesque profits and invest in standards and protection of the new medium, you tried to halt the whole thing through litigation...wow...how much to you get paid to fail to this degree?
Lets go back in time...you can no longer play a whole album on the radio why?..because the record industry litigated that they would lose too much profit from people bootlegging onto tape and not buying the album in the first place...nope that never came to fruition did it? The industry paranoia just limited what your potential customers could enjoy.
Bravo!
Wasn't it your industry that tried to litigate against the phonograph so it would be impossible to record albums to tape in home?...That didn't happen thank God but what damage did it do anyway? None...you still have money coming out your ass from your monopoly on recorded talent.
If you REALLY think you stemmed any kind flow of underground product you should get some smarts...people are just migrating to the unsigned new talent that you failed to woo into your cabal and can be readily found online with..
Personally since the RIAA starting suing everyone they felt they could, my record buying habits dropped off an astonishing 90% easily.
So where I used to buy 10 records a year I buy about 1 and it's usually from a used CD store so you don't even see that dime...way to go champ.
In closing you better take stock of your situation before you go spouting off about your greatness as a actual worthwhile litigation cause.
The record industry and the RIAA are nothing more than a dead medium overseen by a inept executive body and you don't even have the sense to know it.
The Emperor has no clothes on.
Welcome To Detroit
