OK, so I’m hoping that this post will be the beginning of me doing these things on a weekly basis so that I can provide readers with a good stream of timely, up-to-date information on the music business and industry. We’ll start today with a story I came across this week that pits music promotion and sales company c against the Recording Industry Association of America. On February 7, RIAA chief executive Cary Sherman took out an op-ed piece in The New York Times that essentially blasted companies like Wikipedia and Google for their stance on the issues of SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect Intellectual Property Act), saying that the companies take a hypocritical stance by being against the two bills and using their huge communities of customers and their online platforms to force Congress into eventually rejecting the bills. The entire piece, entitled “What Wikipedia Won’t Tell You”, can be read online at the previous link.

In response to the piece, Tunecore’s Jeff Price fired back at Sherman and the RIAA in a piece on the Tunecorner Music Blog entitled “What the RIAA Won’t Tell You - TuneCore’s Response to the NY Times Op-Ed by RIAA CEO Cary H. Sherman”, which can be read in its entirety at the link I’ve provided. In this piece, Price admits that Tunecore has had many run-ins with the RIAA on the question of piracy and copyright. He goes on to say that the RIAA has lost its credibility long ago because of alleged underhanded tactics and having potentially unchecked power as an industry music body because of bills such as SOPA and PIPA.

I’m not putting this entry up to comment about who’s right and who’s wrong, who should be on what side and what someone’s opinion should be. What I do want to do is present just a bit of information on an issue that will clearly continue to affect those that are in the music business and industry (artists, producers, engineers, managers, students, teachers, policymakers) for a long time to come, an issue that we can count on as not going a way any time soon. The facts are that the industry is nowhere near what it used to be, what with the sharing economy now in full swing through new forms of technology, social media and continually growing/experimental business models for music.

So which side do you, the reader, fall on? Are you with RIAA? Of do you lean towards what Tunecore has to say? Here’s a great video from Tunecore on their website and music blog that give a little more information and gets the conversation started. Feel free to share your thoughts here and share this article. Thanks so much for supporting!