UK music industry execs can't talk straight about DRM

By Cory Doctorow at 1:14 pm Wednesday, Jan 25

The BBC asked execs from the British Phonogram Institute (the UK's answer to RIAA), Napster, HMV, and IFPI (international RIAA) a series of questions about digital rights management technologies, which are used to restrict the freedoms of people who buy music instead of downloading it from unauthorized services. In general they spun their answers, avoided the hard questions, and reverted to talking points. Ewan Spence has done a masterful job of deconstructing their responses:

Question: Do you believe people who are buying CDs legally and copying that music to an iPod should be punished - as they are, in fact, breaking the law?

Peter Jamieson, BPI:
Consumers don't have the right to copy CDs in the UK and never have, and though we've never brought action against anyone for private copying, the advent of peer-to-peer and digital distribution has turned the issue on its head. (the average Ipod user has bought 20 tracks from ITMS. Where does Jamieson think the other gigabytes are coming from? Shall we sue them all? - Ewan)

Link (Thanks, Ewan!)