RIAA chairman and CEO Cary Sherman has outlined the music body’s stance on ‘The Future of Audio’ in a submission to the US House of Representatives, and while there are few surprises, it’s still worth a read. Sherman hails a range of new, legal digital music serices, and defends the industry’s ongoing anti-piracy efforts.
“When it comes to protecting or enforcing creative rights, the effort is often caricaturedas a quixotic game of whack-a-mole that only enriches the lawyers. But fresh evidence isemerging that strategic copyright protection combined with robust legal digital offerings canput money into the pockets of artists and songwriters and the companies who invest in them,” writes Sherman, citing LimeWire and Megaupload as key examples.
Sherman also calls for search engines to follow US ISPs in committing to “voluntary marketplace best practices to prevent directing users to sites that are dedicated to violating property rights”. That familiar Google row, although Sherman is if anything more exercised in his submission by the ongoing debate around whether AM/FM radio stations should pay performance royalties.
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