GearBits

Gary Shapiro is My New Best Friend

Who is Gary Shapiro, you ask? He's the President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry trade group.

Why am I suddenly so fond of him? Because he wrote (or at least signed) a positively brilliant response to a letter from the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America, a.k.a. the spawn of Satan). The RIAA letter was asking why the CEA didn't want to back its efforts to get the FCC to mandate a copy-protection flag for digital radio transmissions (as it has with digital TV signals and that goes into effect next summer).

In the CEA's response, Shapiro basically cuts off at the knees every claim the RIAA makes and dismisses every hope it expresses. It's just a great letter...here's the last paragraph:

"In closing, let me again reinforce that non-commercial recording of freely broadcast over the air radio programming is a fundamental consumer right, and one that has consistently been given great deference by Congress. Any discussion of curtailing that right, prior to even the most minimal showing of harm, is ill conceived and premature."

If you want to read it yourself, first read the RIAA's letter and then read the CEA's response. And thanks to boingboing for the lead.

As a final thought, let me just say once and for all that I truly, honestly, and with every ounce of my being, hope the RIAA is soon sued into oblivion and every one of its greedy, soulless and foul-smelling executives sent to prison on 317 consecutive life terms for wanton abuse of consumer/citizen rights and its ongoing, wholesale assault on culture.