Eric, I felt like this was apples and oranges. This guy's opinion of file sharing has little to do with his record of carrying bad stuff onto airplanes. All it does is paint his overall character, which it does a pretty nice job, but it does nothing to discount his opinion.

This is a pure deflection. How is it being hypocritical. In this case, being hypocritical would be criticizing downloaders and running an illegal album reproduction operation out of his home. I know. He told us about something that is illegal, when his actions were far worse. I understand.

Really, doesn't that validate his opinion? If anyone knows something about illegal activity and can share it with the rest of the class, it is Hugh.

Craig, I would say you're about half right. Here is someone lecturing "file sharers" in an open letter calling for respect for the law, which he certainly would appear to be in much more serious viloation of than those exchanging music files.

Sure, as with Richard Clarke, etc., the message isn't necessarily invalidated by the sins of the bearer, but it does underline the hypocrisy of the entire copyright industry, "do as I say not as I do" regarding "moral" behavior from its customers."

Plus, it's funny.

All the kids just gotta have their Hugh Sherwood remixes!

Whoops, I meant to say all the kids just gotta have their Hugh Pressedwood remixes! The Danger Mouse mash up of "The sound of goodbye" and Sepultura's "Roots" sounds to good to be denied widespread listening.

Well you certainly showed him by writing...in a blog! I'm sure he's still feeling the burn. :/

So, what's you point? Since he's a goof thats end his legitamite copywrites and they should be void?

Or that stealing music by trading files is somehow ok since it's mostly done by white middle class american who feel entitled to whatever whenever they want?

If he spoke out against murder, would that make it ok since he's some wacko that believes his intellecual property is his?

*shrug* Worst agrument for file trading..ever.

Doc, assuming your comments are addressed to me, my point has little or nothing to do specifically about file sharing and everything to do with the hypocrisy of his appeal to the conscience of file sharers.

Sure, Hopalong Hugh has the right to plead with the file sharers of the nation to not engage in behavior with which he is uncomfortable (in a very public forum, free of charge, because the publishers of the publication agree with his point of view); and no, his flaunting of federal laws against packing concealed, loaded weapons onto commercial airliners has no direct bearing on the morality of file sharing.

BUT the hypocrisy of the copyright industry insisting that its customers "do as it says" rather than "as it does" in terms of morality is rather neatly self-parodied by this call to principled behavior from a drug-addled gunslinger of the friendly skies.

In addition, this particular smarmy screed fails to note - as does every other piece of copyright industry propaganda on the matter - that the most recent study on file sharing indicates that the behavior has no statistical impact on record sales, which would be the only possible way that file sharing could negatively impact a songwriter's income. Even if one disputes these findings, one might make note of the disputed findings just as a matter of debate ethics.

But, of course, ethics has nothing to do with this discussion, does it?

An ad hominem attack on Hugh Prestwood takes nothing away from his arguments about "file sharing.".

Prestwood is clearly the winner here.

Sure, if by "winner" we mean the felon in prison for breaking federal laws while copies of his plea against file sharing blow down the dusty street outside his federal cell.

AND his actual argument against file sharing from the perspective of a songwriter is self-serving and specious at best and total crap at worst.

"ad hominem" notwithstanding, Eric is correct when he states "the most recent study on file sharing indicates that the behavior has no statistical impact on record sales". Mr. Prestwood's diatribe can be best described as misguided, over-bearing and self-righteous flatulence. I suspect that is the reason for Eric's scathing retort.

Yes, thanks BB, that was much more concise and precise than any of my statements!

"AND his actual argument against file sharing from the perspective of a songwriter is self-serving and specious at best and total crap at worst."

Of course it's self-serving - he's defending the theft of his intellectual property.

The rest of the characterization is irrelevant blather.

Umm, make that "arguing against the theft of his property.."

I'm not sure how it is "blather" that the very core of is argument - that file sharing deprives him of income - is very much in dispute. He conveniently ignores that.

The "blather" is in characterizing it as "specious" and "total crap."

One biased, questionable survey may raise a question but is not definitive proof that he is not being deprived of income, particularly when there is other evidence for the opposite conclusion.

HP --

If the reference to the study was the one most recently profiled on NPR, you might want to retract the biased and questionable part.

1. It is my recollection that the guys that did it were not being paid by a consumer group and/or pro file sharing group. It was conducted through the Harvard Business School and had something to do with buying behavior in general, and they used file sharing to see what numbers came up.

2. Even the record industry representative admitted, during this NPR report, that the data was interesting, subject to further review by the RIAA.

3. The gist of it was this: they tracked the most popular songs for download and then compared them for sales of the CD's those songs were on using Soundscan numbers -- and they found that generally there was no drop in sales for those CD's, or nothing close to what the RIAA claims in terms of the effects of file sharing on sales of CD's.

I'm with Craig on this one. The guy can be a complete fool in one regard (trying to carry a gun onto a plane in these times), but not a fool in regard to filesharing. As somone who still snatches'em when I can via P2P, I happen not to agree with him on that issue. But, his stupidity at the airport does not mean he can't be right on another topic.

Also, we have at least one BC who says he owns 12 guns and has implied he will engage in fisticuffs with anyone who displeases him. (Actually, a chubby, out-of-shape fellow I could probably smack around myself.) The blogosphere is rife with macho men and gun nuts. So, it seems ironic to criticize someone who actually does what many folks here would like to.

Chris, I haven't seen the study, but from what I've read about it, it is questionable in a number of respects.

First, because a few decades of using research in business, my first rule of using research is: "Be skeptical." I'm certain it has kept me out of trouble on more than one occasion.

I start by looking at the methodology. In this case, I'm not sure what theirs was but from what I've read, the study was based on a relatively small sample of downloads during a German school holiday. It's not clear to me whether they sampled only Germans or not, but there is a question about the sample size, as well as where and when the samples were taken.

Apparently, there's also a disagreement on the number of those who download music and do not buy it as estimated in this study and the estimates in previous studies. This sounds like it might be important to the results, so: another question.

And the word "estimates" raises another flag.

Then, according to press reports, they used "complex mathematical formulas" to determine whether there was or was not a correlation between downloads and sales. A consultant (not part of the study) said he was "still trying to understand the complex document" (the study) before making any comments on its claims. If it took that much math to come up with the conclusion, that's another question.

Also, one of researchers, Professor Oberholzer-Gee, said that "previous research assumed that every download could be thought of as a lost sale." That assumption is so wrong that I have trouble believing that all other research was based on it. This brings Oberholzer into question, and I wonder if he didn't start the study with preconceptions or an agenda that influenced his results.

Personally, I'd also be interested in the effect of the long-term social trend of more and more people thinking it's okay to just take intellectual property you have no rights to, and how cumulative this would be (and uncapturable in a short-term study).

So, while the study is very questionable, I'm willing to back off the full "bias" to "may be biased" if the everyone else is willing to admit that this study is not the definitive word on the relationship between "file sharing" and lower music sales.

It really doesn't prove there's no effect. It's just one tree in the forest, and we don't know whether it has root rot or not.

HP --

Fair enough.

A story on the report from the Washington Post is here. The report itself is here. This is not the first report to suggest file sharing either doesn't do measureable harm or may even increase record sales. Every report funded by the industry says it does harm sales, most reports not affiliated with the industry say no. The point is that it is a very much open question, which is completely ignored by the songwriter, who speaks from the position of absolute certainty that file sharing directly and negatively affects his income. This renders his plea "specious" at best and "total crap" at worst.

There are a couple things that I think the RIAA is mistaken about. Specifically, even if Downloading negatively affects their sales, they are still missing the boat on the biggest causes of sales decreases.

Here is a list of the reasons (in my mind) that record sales are down other than the possibility of downloading.

1. Radio Consolidation
2. The Decline of MTV
3. Video Games
4. Affordable DVD's

On top of that, the recording industry is always so slow on the trends. The public has been backlashing at the popstars for a couple years now, with the exception of J Timberlake. So all the majors are now scrambling to get rock back out there, but SURPRISE, nobody wants Korn or Shit Bizkit.

"Oh my God! What do they want?"

They have no idea, so they end up overpaying to buy the underground artists out of their contracts on smaller labels, some of which they were loosely partnered with in the first place, so in essence they can pay for an album twice like they did with Wilco a couple years ago.

There are much bigger problems than downloading, as you can plainly see.

Your latest comment seems to paint a different picture than the opener in your orignal post:

"This is hysterical: a drug-addled loon who gets arrested for trying to tote a loaded gun onto an airplane has the unmitigated gall to give the beatdown to file sharers."

And I still don't see any "H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y" from Prestwood.

The hypocrisy is not based upon his topic of file sharing, but upon his assumption of moral superiority and lecturing 60 million people to obey the law and do what's right while he tries to carry a loaded gun onto an airplane.

ON TOP OF THAT, his argument specifically against file sharing as an activity that deprives him of income is specious, etc, for the reasons cited above.

His argument isn't on top of anything, it's just his argument, so I guess I'll just never see your interpretation of that as H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y.

I see it the same way Craig does: "being hypocritical would be criticizing downloaders and running an illegal album reproduction operation out of his home."

That would go beyond hypocrisy into another realm for which there is perhaps no name: "Roy Cohnism"?

It is broadly hypocritical as I have now defined it about five times. No one has to agree.

Just to be a devil's advocate ....

Would the term hypocrite apply to a guy who admits to downloading songs without permission while criticizing someone else's lawlessness [such as carrying a gun on a plane]?

;-)

I have to say, though, that my favorite part of his letter is the last paragraph. It sounds at first like he's threatening to unleash crappy songs on the world if people keep stealing the ones he thinks are good.

Like we don't already pay good money for crappy songs.

Finally, you must realize that in real life you really do get what you pay for. If you won't pay for music, you will soon be receiving a product commensurate with your thriftiness.

Technically, yes (if we are referring to me, I have never downloaded a copyrighted song without permission, although my wife and son have downloaded a total of about ten songs at my request). But I was specifically criticizing his hypocrisy, not the lawlessness.

I'ze just teasing. 8-)

I know, but the point deserved to be addressed - the meta-criticism implications are staggering.

Have you ever taken home a pen or pad of sticky notes from the office? Hmmmmmmm?

>>>>First of all: blow it out your fatuous ass, Hugh.

Eric, this doesn't seem to go along with your new rules of Blogcritic etiquette, which were an admirable attempt and I wholeheartedly approve.

But if you're breaking them, then what was the point of that six-point plan?

I believe this site would be better served if you either disregard politics (but no angry arguments generate traffic and Blogad revenue) or have a separate category for them outside of "Etc."

Temple, read the rules again. They are intended to proscribe civil intercourse between Blogcritics, not eliminate criticism of people "out there" in the wide world of life. If Eric were to suggest that you do something like that, that would be a problem, but Hugh is fair game.

yes, we don't have to be nice to anyone who doesn't belong to our tribe

We can only hold the rules to the people who know them... and hopefully we can lead by example. When someone comes in from nowhere throwing names and/or epithets, BlogCritics don't have to turn the other cheek. (Thankfully!)