I think Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) President Cary Sherman must have his head buried in the sand, as he seems to feel the actions of Sony BMG in the (what can only be termed) XCP fiasco have been “very responsible.”

My only comment is that the sand you are referring to must be very hard on Mr. Sherman’s hemmroids.

The individual consumer is not the perpetrator of piracy, sharing is not piracy. Sharing has been in existence ever since the first magnetic tape recorder became a consumer item. Piracy is alive and well in back rooms or wherever hackers break code and counterfeiters make thousands of illegal copies and sell them for profit. They are the ones the RIAA, MPAA and BSA (Business Software Alliance - headed by non other than Micro$oft) should be targeting as pirates.

We need to take up the fight against the RIAA, and the MPAA to preserve our rights “fair use.” In the battle against piracy and to preserve our rights, we as consumers must use the best weapon at our disposal: our discretionary income. We must not support pirates by purchasing illegal copies of music CD’s, DVD’s, and software. Boycott the RIAA and MPAA and those artists who support them in their malicious attacks against consumers.

In a free consumer society such as ours, we as ordinary people have a right more powerful than our right to vote. This right knows no age limit, gender, ethnicity, race, or religion. This is the right to spend our money as we deem fit. To chose who gets our hard earned cash. We must be less impulsive in our purchases and reward those who provide us with the products and services that do not only ourselves the most good but society as a whole.

It’s hard to see how Sony’s behavior could be considered “Responsible”, since they followed the standard corporate playbook:
1) Deny that the problem exists.
2) Try to discredit those who spotted it.
3) Try to minimize the damage.
4) Offer a “solution” that does not solve the problem.
5) Spin like crazy.
6) Try to turn the solution into a marketing opportunity.
7) Try to settle lawsuits “without admitting guilt or liability” (What’s up with that?)

Responsible? Nope.

I think Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) President Cary Sherman must have his head buried in the sand, as he seems to feel the actions of Sony BMG in the (what can only be termed) XCP fiasco have been “very responsible”. He made t…