To some, January 18th -- the day the Internet came together in protest of SOPA and PIPA -- was seen as a day of important democratic action. To others, like the RIAA's CEO Cary Sherman, it was seen as a great failure of the democratic system. An act of "demagoguery" rather than "democracy."
That was the gist, and the wording, of a controversial op-ed Sherman wrote for The New York Times in early February, entitled What Wikipedia Won't Tell You. In it, he claimed that Wikipedia and Google tricked the greater Internet public into believing that SOPA and PIPA were bad. Here's a quote:
When Wikipedia and Google purport to be neutral sources of information, but then exploit their stature to present information that is not only not neutral but affirmatively incomplete and misleading, they are duping their users into accepting as truth what are merely self-serving political declarations... The conventional wisdom is that the defeat of these bills shows the power of the digital commons. Sure, anybody could click on a link or tweet in outrage - but how many knew what they were supporting or opposing? Would they have cast their clicks if they knew they were supporting foreign criminals selling counterfeit pharmaceuticals to Americans?
Talk about a "self-serving political declaration." To me, that sounds a lot like Mr. Sherman isn't a big fan of informing the public. Better to let everyone believe that opposing SOPA is the equivalent of supporting foreign criminals.
That's why when Andrew Keen, author (and friend of Internet Evolution), posted a tweet the other day requesting questions to ask Sherman on his radio show, I suggested: "Do you really consider an informed democratic public to be a bad thing (as you seemed to in your NYT op-ed)?"
You can take a look at Sherman answering my question and others on Keen's show below (note the grimace that crosses face as he's being asked). But here are a couple of notable points:
"Readers online" accepted misinformation being spread by Google and Wikipedia about SOPA and PIPA based on the assumption "if it comes from these sources, it must be true."
Members of Congress were "very frustrated that they couldn't get out their side of the story." (Aww.)
Those on the Internet have to hold themselves to the "same high standards" as newspapers and broadcast journalists do in the offline world, "with clarity and integrity."
To that last point, it's completely true that anyone charged with spreading information should do so with "clarity and integrity." But it's nothing short of propaganda to propose that online sources were the ones serving up misinformation about bills that were very clearly bad for the Internet. (Hence Mr. Sherman's inability to cite anything specific or specifically positive about the bills in his op-ed piece.)
Further, essentially chalking this up to a stubborn wrinkle in his plans, he says, "Hopefully that was a one-time experience that came from a lot of different things coming together where a lot of different people came to the conclusion that this was a terrible piece of legislation."
In other words, hopefully next time people will only be privy to the message of legislators and lobbyists -- you know, the ones who never misinform the public for political gain.
The real problem is that the privacy rights that we are supposedly afforded in life do not translate to our online lives. When we send a letter we have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The letter will arrive at its destination, unopened. Sadly, this is not the case online. Most traffic sent over the Internet is plain text, and even that which is encrypted with SSL is susceptible to trusted man in the middle interception.
Individuals need to be more weary and take steps to protect their privacy. Hush Tunnel (hushtunnel.com) is an example of a personal encryption service that is not prone to trusted interception. (Disclaimer: this is a service I launched). It does have an open source Firefox add-on that works with *any* SSH tunneling service to encrypt your traffic by simply pressing a button. Combine this with local privacy techniques such as cookie management and ad blocking, and parasitic organizations will have a much harder time finding targets to prey on.
@TDC, Not surprising, seeing as artists hardly made any money off of record sales to begin with. No wonder we don't see too many arists fighting for the survival of the CD. All of that only goes to serve the business side, not the creators.
I came across Natalie Maines tweet feed last night and in there she does mention that iTunes pays the record label directly then the artists get a crumb tossed their way if even that. Maybe the record companies need to overhaul their system and give the artists a little breathing room when trying to recoup these advances.
She also said things are such now days that the Chicks were very lucky to hit it when they did. The rules have changed and it's a whole new ballgame now.
When the MPAA and RIAA purport to be neutral sources of information, but then exploit their stature to present information that is not only not neutral but affirmatively incomplete and misleading, they are duping the government and public into accepting as truth what are merely self-serving political declarations... The truth is that the defeat of these bills shows the power of the digital commons. Sure, anybody could post a link or tweet in outrage - but how many knew that they were supporting the greater involvement of the public in the political process by opposing these bills? Would they have held back their clicks in previous years if they knew their effectiveness in opposing criminals buying counterfeit legislation from Americans' representatives in congress?
"As for the rest of your argument.. Oh dear you really don't understand the internet users of the world if you believe this was a 1 time event."
Totally agree with you, MarkE, that there's no way this was a one-time event. My guess is that Sherman is hoping to use this kind of language to deter people from trusting the "misinformation" of the Internet next time... but there's just no chance he's going to succeed with that. All he's doing is making people more aware of how wrong the RIAA is in this matter.
The crazy thing is that most industries want their products to go viral. The RIAA fears that.
Think of the volume of people who video something from a concert on their smartphones and then post the snippet on YouTube. I contend that there is some revenue leakage, of course, but many viewers are more inspired to see the artist live or buy something from the artist or even listen to the artist on Pandora.
Next thing you know, the RIAA will say that radio killed the music industry.
"Would they have cast their clicks if they knew they were supporting foreign criminals selling counterfeit pharmaceuticals to Americans?"
And thats nothing to do with wanting to have laws to ensure the price of the real items can be kept too high? DVDs/Blu-rays/CD too expensive.. Media piracy, Pharmaceuticals priced out of range for most people.. Counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Clothes with fashion logo too expensive.. Counterfeit clothes.. Seems to be a pattern here that you want to prevent the cheaper alternatives in order to keep prices high. As for the rest of your argument.. Oh dear you really don't understand the internet users of the world if you believe this was a 1 time event. lol
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Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
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