jane dark's sugarhigh!

Hed Spin (+ Elizabeth Mendez Berry)

On the same day that the RIAA sues 477 more of their customers, CNN's online edition features an article titled Study: Legal fears changing landscape for music downloaders. It says this in really big letters.

There are literally thousands of very small letters underneath the hed. And honestly, I felt I had every right to expect those letters (which I took time out of my very busy day in order to read) would say something like, oh, people are downloading less because they are afraid of being sued.

The data which inspired the headline was that, of the people who had stopped downloading over that period, a bunch of them said it was legal fears that made them stop. That's an interesting, if not exactly shocking, pseudofact. I guess. The article attempts to frame this info to justify the headline: "The change in usage patterns comes against the backdrop of the recording industry's campaign against unauthorized swapping of music files. Many of the resulting lawsuits have led to settlements of thousands of dollars each. Legally, recording labels can demand $150,000 per song for copyright infringement."

Italics mine, unpaid advertisement for RIAA's power and authority theirs.

"Changing landscape"? "Change in usage"? You bet. If you take time out of your busy day to read all these minuscule letters, you will discover that the poll CNN has used indicates that folks are downloading more: "the number of users who say they do download music jumped to 23 million, compared with 18 million in a similar survey that Pew did in November-December 2002." That's about a 28% increase in downloading over less than a year and a half. The hed, and as much of the article's lnaguage as could be warped, would like you to believe something else entirely, despite an absence of supporting facts.

In far more human and cheering matters, click on the link immediately below to see a photo (courtesy Ann Powers) from Elizabeth Mendez Berry's breathtaking Critical Karaoke performance of "Yo Me Llamo Cumbia," by Leonor Gonzales Mina -- a performance which involved cultural history, personal attachment, and fearless salsa stylings.

Posted by jane at April 29, 2004 10:20 AM | TrackBack