response 87 of 163:

Feb 2 18:13 UTC 2003

Salon runs an essay by a board member of NARAS, the National Association
of Recording Arts and Sciences, the organization which gives out the 
Grammy Awards.   The author, John Snyder, is president of a small
record label I have never heard of before, and the intro says he 
has been nominated for a Grammy Award 32 times.
 
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/02/01/file_trading_manifesto/?x
"Embrace File Sharing or Die"

This is a long essay which was written to convince the NARAS board that
it needs to stop supporting the RIAA positions on file sharing.
Much of this will be familiar from this series of web log items.
 
From the introduction:
   "The statistic discussed in the December meeting that there were 3 billion
downloads the previous month shows that the law is goign to have to be 
changed, unless you take the position that downloaded music is stealing
and THEREBY CRIMINALIZE THE SOCIETY ((emphasis KRJ)).  But how can 
50 million people (over 200 million worldwide) be wrong?"

from the middle...
   "Why is it that record companies pay dearly for radio play and 
fight Internet play? ... If we look at the Internet as analogous 
to radio, the problem becomes one of performance rights, not one of
unlawful exploitation of intellectual property."

   "If your music is not being downloaded, then you're in trouble.
If you can't give it away, you certainly can't sell it.  Daniel Bedingfeld
recently had a Top 3 song on the radio, with "Gotta Get Thru This."
However, his music was hardly available on any of the P2P networks.
His record lasted on the Billboard Top 200 for less than a month, even
though the single had been on radio playlists all over the country 
for several months."  The authors compare this with Eminem, whose 
2002 was both widely downloaded, and the top selling album of the year.
"This seems to indicated the opposite of what the RIAA would have yhou 
believe.  When people share MP3s, more music is sold, not less."

and from the Conclusion:
   "((The RIAA)) is leading us over a cliff.  The RIAA has staked out a
position that is as unrealistic as it is anti-consumer and anti-artist.
Their interests and the interests of NARAS are not the same. ...
They cling unsuccessfully to the past rather than embrace the stunning 
opportunities offered by the future. ...  It is one thing to be unsuccessful,
it's one thing to argue a bad position, but it's quite another to be 
silly and laughed at, and that's where the RIAA has ended up.
They appear to be totally irrelevant except as bagmen."