Edgar Bronfman, jr, is the Canadian who heads up Warner Music, the only North American member of the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, the remaining labels being EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany).

They're using their many and various 'trade' outfits to try to terrorize customers around the world into buying over-priced, low quality digital downloads. Instead, music lovers invariably continue to look to the independent sites and services which currently reign supreme as the principal suppliers of music in the online world.

The multi-billion-dollar Big 4 claim they're being "decimated," driven to ruin by file sharers, typified by Bobby Santangelo, the son of a New York woman who successfully defied Warner, et al, when they tried to bully her into paying an extortionate 'settlement' to leave her alone.

She forced them to drop their case against her. So they targeted her son, Bobby, who was then only 12, and his big sister, Michelle, who was 16.

They're very ordinary kids from what was a very ordinary home, until the Big 4's RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) literally turned up on their doorstep.

Now the entire family has come to symbolize the lengths to which the already financially bloated Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG will go to keep the cash flowing into their coffers.

Bobby and Michelle are both being accused by the Big 4's RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) of being hard-case "thieves", massive distributors of copyrighted music who are guilty of the non-existent crime of file sharing.

However, sharing means exactly that. Sharing. No money changes hands and no one is deprived of something they formerly owned.

An international PR disaster

"Fans who share music are not thieves or pirates," says the Canadian Music Creators Coalition whose members boast international stars such as Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan and Bare Naked Ladies. "Sharing music has been happening for decades."

And yet RIAA spokespersons such as RIAA president Cary Sherman spin this into a major crime, saying it's no different from someone walking into a store and shop-lifting a CD. Sherman, and others like him, are then able to have the ridiculous assertion parroted in the mainstream media just as though it's a serious proposition from credible sources.

But their attack on Bobby is turning into an international PR disaster that's being reported around the world. And Bronfman poured gasoline on the fire when he admitted to Reuters that his own children had "stolen" music by sharing it.

However, his kids aren't being regularly publicly humiliated by the mainstream media, or being fearsomely interrogated by the likes of Richard Gabriel, a current RIAA legal front-man.

Rather, they received a mild lecture from their father. End of story.

And what about Mitch Bainwol, the man who runs the RIAA? Have his three kids similarly "stolen" from his employers, such as Bronfman's Warner Music? If they did, were they, too, merely mildly chastised by way of retribution?

'We were disappointed ...'

In a CNN interview, last year, Miles O'Brien, having just finished talking to Patti Santangelo, turns to Sherman and says, "I know you don't want to come on with her, which tells me a little bit you're walking on eggshells on the public relations front, here."

"I'm sure Mrs Santangeo would be very concerned if she found out that one of her kids had shoplifted a CD," Sherman states, going on, "What they're doing collectively is decimating the music industry."

O'Brien presses the point saying even if that was the case, he doubts if it would end up in a lawsuit and asks, "Is there another way to approach this problem?" - he asks."Because, sad to say, it's not stopping."

Responds Sherman, "We were disappointed that Mrs Santangelo didn't take advantage of an offer to get rid of this case quickly ..."

When the interview took place in 2006, "most people have [settled] when they find that somebody in their household of somebody using their computer was in the wrong," Sherman stated unequivocally.

'Tell it to the judge ...'

However, according to the RIAA's own figures, most had not settled. In fact, by 2006, only 21.8% of the at the time17,000 victims had caved in. And they did that not because the were admitting they'd done something wrong. They 'settled' because they knew they had absolutely no hope of taking on the hugely wealthy Big 4 records labels, with their limitless financial and legal resources, in a fair legal battle.

Speaking of balance, "Is it fair to go after a divorced mother of five who doesn't have a lot of financial means who really didn't know anything about this and thought she was doing all she could to protect her kids online?" - O'Brien asks Sherman, who says, "The reality is an overwhelming number of people who've been sued tell us the same story, that they didn't know what was going on ..."

O'Brien interrupts, "So what do you say? Do you just say, Tell it to the judge?' Is that it?"

Sherman: "We basically try to settle at a reasonable number taking into account all the circumstances of the particular case. In this case if Mrs Santangelo did not do this, then she should tell us who did and we would modify the complaint accordingly."

"That puts a parent in a tough position and you know that," says O'Brien. "Would you do that as a parent?"

"Parents have to assume some responsibility for their kids," says Sherman, adding proudly:

"We had one grandfather who had those kids work off the amount that he paid to settle as a way of teaching them a lesson and making this a family event."

Stay tuned.

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Also See:
not thieves or pirates - Canada music download record, January 31, 2007
poured gasoline on the fire - Robert Santangelo bites back, January 31, 2007