John Borland writes in CNET:

In a speech given at a storage technology conference in San Francisco, Consumer Electronics Association CEO Gary Shapiro blasted the copyright owners' "scorched earth" legal and policy drives. He also warned policymakers against passing new legislation without serious scrutiny of labels' and movie studios' claims.

"The entire theme of the copyright community is that downloading off the Web is both illegal and immoral," Shapiro said, according to the text of his speech. "It is neither."


The speech marks Shapiro and the consumer electronics community's boldest recent statement against the record companies' and movie studios' efforts. The group's words place it squarely in the midst of a cross-industry backlash to the copyright holders' war on Internet piracy, however. ISPs (Internet service providers) and technology companies have separately made their own displeasure public in recent weeks.

For the most part, consumer electronics companies have been careful to say that they are working with copyright holders to find an appropriate balance between consumer and copyright holder rights, and that they respect the labels' and studios' goals.....