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From: Negativland Dear Ms. Rosen, We appreciate your very quick public response to the current pressing plant controversy pointed out in our recent press release of August 17, 1998 ("DO WE HAVE TO SUE THE RIAA?"). However, somewhat like that other President's recent statement, it is not a very satisfying answer to the problem at hand. Would you characterize your statement as "legally accurate?" Ah, lawyers! Aren't they wonderful? Anyway, we would characterize your statement as another stunning example of the self-serving deflection techniques now so prevalent among governments and corporations alike when dealing with "the people." There are several transparent lapses of logic in your statement. To say that "The RIAA has had absolutely no involvement with Negativland" because "It has neither seen, heard, nor been consulted about the release" is a sadly disingenuous denial of the actual effect your "guidelines" are having out here in the real world. We have actually talked to pressing plants AND your employees, and BOTH made it clear that un-cleared samples are included in your guidelines. Your own representatives made this explicitly clear to the plant we were using. If this is not true, then you have a vast miscommunication problem to deal with at home and abroad. The RIAA's guidelines, coming directly from you, have clearly involved Negativland. We had no problem pressing any of our CD's until you issued them! Our records contain plenty of samples and free appropriation for which we claim fair use. We do not counterfeit, pirate, or bootleg anything. Doesn't this suggest that, under the intimidating threats from your recent Guidelines, pressing plants are now afraid to press works that sample without authorization? Now you state that this is NOT what is happening. What IS happening now is pure Alice In Wonderland: "First the sentence, then the trial!" Fair Use issues are not for you to decide prior to their ever appearing. We make the (to you) surprising claim that Fair Use is a right, while the RIAA claims it is only an affirmative defense and that all un-cleared uses are automatically an infringement....it all depends on which lawyers you are talking to! Of course, this is what the courts (and all your lawyers) are for, should our sampling be contested in the public sector. We are perfectly willing to have our free appropriations challenged by you or anyone else once they exist in the marketplace. We are not willing to be prevented from expressing our art in this way with the presumptuous prior restraint and self-censorship that your pressing guidelines suggest and encourage under threat of liability. The Century is about to turn. There will be no future that does not include the past - not when the past is recorded to this degree! Why do you think collage has become such a pervasive technique in ALL art mediums throughout this Century? The music industry is now freaking out because collage has finally appeared in mass marketed music - in hip-hop, techno, dance, pop and rock, the aesthetic practice of appropriation has firmly taken hold. This is not a "problem," it's a creative boon to the medium! Anyone truly interested in the healthy evolution of modern art should not be taking the anti-art stance you are now promoting, no matter how unwittingly. You can try to get collagists to pay for all uses, but this simply prevents any grass roots, non-corporate examples of collage from being made - we can't afford it. You can try to make collagists get permission for all uses but this simply eliminates all uses which may be unflattering or annoying to the owners. This is why copyright is a LIMITED right and Fair Use is provided for within it. Fair Use BYPASSES a copyright owners exclusive monopoly of a copyrighted work for a good reason: to promote freedom of speech and freedom of expression, free from the pre-emptive censorship of its subjects. The RIAA must make up its mind and stop promoting confusion. Are you or are you not saying that pressing plants may be held liable for pressing disks that contain unauthorized fragmentary sampling (as opposed to whole-work piracy and counterfeiting, which is and should remain illegal)? In your mind and from your heart, is there any legal distinction required between collage and whole-work piracy? We would like a clear and simple answer to this one question, preferably NOT written by a lawyer.
Sincerely,
For anyone reading this letter who might still be thinking about writing
that THOUGHTFUL AND CONSTRUCTIVE LETTER to the RIAA- please do! It'll help!!
Send e-mail to Hilary Rosen, CEO of the RIAA: sdonofrio@riaa.com, fcreighton@riaa.com, jbetts@riaa.com, sfabrizio@riaa.com, jflatow@riaa.com, dincorvaia@riaa.com, jbendall@riaa.com, clawhorn@riaa.com, jhenkel@riaa.com, lpelliccia@riaa.com, jberman@riaa.com, csherman@riaa.com, nashby@riaa.com, lbocchi@riaa.com, pbrooks@riaa.com, jegas@riaa.com, jfleming@riaa.com, jganoe@riaa.com, hkim@riaa.com, smarks@riaa.com, hmccaffrey@riaa.com, jmilbauer@riaa.com, rmorgan@riaa.com, moppenheim@riaa.com, mpetersen@riaa.com, brobinson@riaa.com, lsalet@riaa.com, msimcik@riaa.com, tsites@riaa.com, dstebbings@riaa.com, btenor@riaa.com, nturkewitz@riaa.com, dvaldez@riaa.com, awalsh@riaa.com, fwalters@riaa.com, jwhitehead@riaa.com, wyascur@riaa.com 
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