Some scoured quotes on the copyright issues and music from around the web.

According to a panel of experts convened here (Amsterdam) by the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) and chaired by Brad Hunt, chief technology officer of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA):
We have met the enemy, and he is us," Johnathan Taplin, chairman and chief executive officer of Intertainer Inc., a Culver City, Calif.-based on-demand video service company, said: "Technology is not the problem. It's the content cartel!"

"There is a content cartel used to running over networks that it controls," said Taplin, charging that the studios, "want to be able to control the food chain from beginning to end."

Piracy could be reduced to a nuisance, according to Brad Brunell, director, marketing and business development of Windows New Media Platforms Division at Microsoft Corp., if the studios increased the flow of "legitimate" on-line content from a trickle to a flood. "Yes, the Internet is a source of leakage. But there is no legitimate content source," said Brunell.

Sander scoffed at Hollywood's anxieties over Internet piracy while DVDs - "digital venereal disease" -- remain the primary source of stolen content. Taplin chimed in by stating that Hollywood's current resistance to the release of its best work in high-quality digital form over IP, combined its demand for as much as 60 percent of revenue from all use of its content, is a formula for a "digital train wreck."

Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association: "The entire theme of the copyright community is that downloading off the Web is both illegal and immoral," "It is neither."

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards: "We're on the threshold of a whole new system," "The time where accountants decide what music people hear is coming to an end. Accountants may be good at numbers, but they have terrible taste in music. I don't know how I'm going to get paid, but I'd rather go out into the brave new world than live with dinosaurs that are far too big for their boots."

On label fears of financial ruin, Don Henley : "When the record companies make $5 for every $1 the artist makes, I don't see where they get off making those remarks. It's another spin tactic."

Simon Renshaw, RAC board member and manager of the Dixie Chicks: "Once people have a true understanding of what's involved, the labels will be forced to reform," he says. "The RIAA has positioned this as a bunch of rich old rock stars seeking revenge and better deals. The truth is, this system would not be suffered in any other business. You have record companies bought and sold on the strength of copyrights created by artists who sign away all rights in perpetuity to a faceless corporation.

Simon Renshaw: "In the past 20 years, an industry that was led by visionaries and music lovers has become dominated by accountants, financial analysts and people who can't think ahead more than 90 days."

Wayne Kramer, founder of punk's seminal MC5: "...Artists know the score. Since the business started, record companies have been getting away with murder. Almost none of the musicians I know have health insurance. Every record executive I know has health insurance, a nice house in the hills and a golden parachute."

Tom Waits: "The record companies are like cartels, like countries, for God's sake," "It's a nightmare to be trapped in one. I'm on a good label (Epitaph) now that's not part of the plantation system. But all the old records I did for Island have been swallowed up and spit out in whatever form they choose. These corporations don't have feelings, and they don't see themselves as the stewards of the work. They are making shoes, and then they want to go to the Bahamas and get a suntan."

Tom Waits: "Artists really do need to communicate and organize," he says. "Don Henley is willing to get a haircut and go to Washington. I'm all for that."

Well, I, for one, certainly don't know of any successful business of ANY kind that was ever run on negative 'always-assume-the-worst' attitudes, paranoia, distrust and crypto-racism (the 'mis'-treating potential customers as thieves and pirates being a clear example of all of the above). Moreover, in a sense I can't see how any of these executives within the multinational 'entertainment-industrial complex' can even function as normal human beings (if you can call them that) what with this constant obsession about "piracy" that they (apparently) walk around with every moment of their lives. But then, it's also about these execs not being satisfied with what they have; they want it all and don't care if they bleed anyone dry (be they artists, musicians or consumers). Just as what we saw in all the corporate scandals over the past year, since Enron's bankruptcy. In other words, the rich-get-richer-and-poor-get-poorer syndrome.

Take a survey of ALL the musicians who have ever dealt with record companies as to how they were treated. What per cent would say "GREAT".

Okay, you forgot one. It's just two hours old, but already a classic:

"P2P piracy is moving America towards a communist system of intellectual property."

James Miller,
Assistant Professor of Economics
Smith College, University of Massachusetts, USA

Re Miller's "statement": Which lobby breads HIS butter? Five'll get you ten, the RIAA / MPAA / IFPI three-headed Iron Curtain.

But in all seriousness, I was somehow under the impression that such measures as the Berman bill bordered on communism; more specifically, styled after the kind of repressive measures in effect against political dissidents and activists in China, Cuba, and North Korea. All closed societies, by the way, if you've noticed . . . which the modern-day Iron Curtain seeks to transform THIS country into.

Do not confuse governmental oppression with corporate oppression. One tries to take freedom as an end in itsself, the other only as a means to profit.

I think you guys forgot what communism really is. Forget all about the cold war connotation and think about the philisophical meanig. Miller is trying to say that P2P will take the means of distribution out of the hands of the recording industry and give it back to the people.

The point I was trying to make is:

a) Whether this guy is or not, Miller certainly appears to be a hack for the Establishment media elites in general, and the multinational entertainment-industrial complex in particular; why else would he pipe up in the way he did? His use of the word "piracy" in connection with this pronouncement of his raised the red flag in my head as to his intent.

Also, as for the differences between governmental and corporate oppression (per 'goldenpi'): The only difference I see is who's doing the oppressing. Both have the same "ends-justify-the-means" mentality and callous ruthlessness and heartlessness.