“When the history of the recording industry is written, they will cite the RIAA’s [Recording Industrry Association of America] lawsuits against their customers as their darkest hour….[M]ost people think of it as winning the battle and losing the war.

“The recording industry is now an enemy of the public and this is truly sad. Consumers love the artists and hate the unbranded, faceless, nameless distributors that keep them from accessing what they now believe should be totally free. Of all the battles caused by the transition to networked media, the most bloodied and most devastated industry will be recorded music.

“The missed opportunity to understand the consumer and the unwillingness to adjust its thinking almost pale by comparison to the cultural and societal damage that the industry’s collective ‘head in the sand’ position has caused…..It is a business nightmare from which the industry will not awake…..”

The quotes are cited in Recording Industry vs The People and they’re from Television Disrupted by Shelly Palmer, 1st vp of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and chairman of Advanced Media Technology Emmy Awards.

The RIAA, often presented as a ‘trade’ association, is to all intents and purposes owned and controlled by Warner Music, Vivendi Universal, EMI and Sony BG, all of whom are being investigated in the US at federal and state levels.

They’re using the RIAA as the focal point in a bizarre marketing plan under which they’re trying to sue their own customers, accused of being “thieves” and “criminals,” into buying lossy, over-priced downloads, using the claim that file sharing is “devastating” the music industry as the justification.

However, with file sharing, “share” is the operative word. Nothing has been stolen, no one has been deprived of anything he or she formerly owned, no money changes hands, and it’s never been shown that a file shared equals a sale lost.
Via p2pnet.net