Q&A with the RIAA

Cary Sherman, the president of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), fielded questions about recent RIAA actions and stances at an online session hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

With students and colleges as recent and public RIAA targets, the issue begs serious questions from those within academic environments, and hits directly upon what we will discuss at the upcoming Internet & Society Conference 2007: how should Universities relate and respond to external forces?

"The recording industry regularly asks colleges to police their students in regard to infringement. Why is it the task of colleges to do this police work, rather than the police?...If colleges 'pass along messages' that direct students to 'pay lump sums to record companies,' colleges become an arm of the recording industry, bypassing their educational role (teaching about fair use, for example) and bypassing legal due process, if in fact there is a criminal charge to be made," wrote Berkman fellow Lewis Hyde to Mr. Sherman.

As part of his response, Sherman replied, "First, we do not ask colleges to police their students. But we do expect colleges to be proactive in educating their students about illegal downloading, about their network 'acceptable use' policies, in enforcing their policies and the law when violations are brought to their attention, and in offering legitimate alternatives so students can get music legally rather than illegally."

The full Q&A as held by the Chronicle of Higher Education. with Lewis' full questioning and Mr. Sherman's full answer, can be found here, and we also have Lewis' response to his questions' response below.

"To comment briefly on Mr. Sherman's response, the first thing to note is that his entire presentation assumes that all created work is intellectual property and has market value.  That assumption may be appropriate to the recording industry but it isn't appropriate to the university.

As for the particulars here, Sherman says that the RIAA doesn't ask colleges to police their students, but what follows makes it clear that they do.  My question presumed that we cannot know if any particular downloading is legal or not; to know that would require a look at the evidence and, if contested, due process of law.  Sherman, on the other hand, assumes the guilt of the targeted students (the word 'illegal' appears six times in the first paragraph) and asks the colleges to follow suit.

My question also assumed that the distinction between the university and the recording industry is worth preserving.  This response is thus a bit disingenuous:  '...we are not asking them to tell their students what to do--just to give us an opportunity to convey our message...'  The fact is that a message "conveyed" by the college becomes the college's message as well, and brings to bear the considerable authority that colleges have over their students' lives.  If these are 'pre-litigation letters' that amount to both 'DMCA notices and 'preservation of evidence' notices,' the act of conveying them implies a convergence of the industry's norms and the college's norms.

In directly addressing my point about 'distinct institutions,' Sherman allows the distinction but then quickly erases it, claiming that we all 'share a common interest in teaching that music, movies, academic writings and all other forms of intellectual property have value and that it's both illegal and immoral to take it without paying for it.'

No we don't.  Not all music, movies, and academic writings are intellectual property.  Not all creative work finds its value in the marketplace.  And often it is both legal and morally right to share it without any payment being involved.  The norms of the academy are not the norms of the music business, and the academy should resist the call to confuse them."