2:How are you actually going to overcome the "fair use" doctrine? It's already a fact that "archival" copies are allowed, so why is "space shifting" not archival and thus "fair use"?

3:You say that you are protecting artists rights, but after what AFTRA did to Sam Moore, shouldn't you be helping artists suffering from the indignities of piss-poor managments of their pension funds and royalties?

Interested to hear your answers....
Shawn

Cary Sherman:
1. I wish you were right that CD sales haven't been impacted by filesharing. (I hate that term, by the way. To me, "sharing" means we each get a little less. If I share my pie, I only get to eat half. If I share my car, I can't use it when the other person has it. "Filesharing" however means we each get the whole thing, and noboby gives up anything! That's not sharing, it's publishing!)

In 2001, sales were off by 10% in the US. That's a huge drop. Sales are down more than 10% so far this year (according to SoundScan). What's more, this is happening around the world, not just in the U.S. It's hard to think that people suddenly don't like the new music being offered in countries as diverse as the US, Japan, Germany, Sweden, the UK, etc. But what all these countries have in common is growing Internet access and increasing numbers of CD burners and burgeoning sales of blank CD-R discs. Get the idea?

Furthermore, we've been studying this for awhile (no surprise there). In a study we'll be releasing soon conducted by Peter Hart Research Associates for us, we learned that — by more than two to one - those who say they are downloading more say they are purchasing less. To be fair, some said they were purchasing more. But only 19% said they purchased more, while 41% said they purchased less. We've got lots more data that's consistent with these findings. The studies being bandied about to show that filesharing helps music sales don't really show that - they just show that there's a correlation between people who download music and people who buy CDs. Well that's no surprise. Music fans are going to buy CDs as well as download music for free. But if there's any promotional benefit from filesharing, it's more than outweighed by the damage it's doing to sales. In 2000, the top ten albums sold 60 million units in the U.S. In 2001, they sold 40 million units. Seven albums sold over 5 million copies in 2000; none did in 2001. People are copying the biggest hits, and those are the money-makers that record companies rely on to pay for investments in new artists and music. (I'm glad you bought the Maddening Crowd CD, by the way.)

2. This question brings out the lawyer in me. It is not a fact that "archival" copies are allowed. Copyright law specifically allows certain kinds of archival copies of software, but not of music, movies, books or anything else. In fact, in the Texaco case, the court held that making archival copies of scientific papers was not a fair use. As for space shifting, I don't think any court has actually held that it's a fair use. And a couple have specifically ruled that it isn't. That doesn't mean that copyright owners are likely to come after you if you make a copy for your car. But the space-shifting argument tends to be abused - it was used by Napster to justify their P2P system, for example. And the court rejected it.