Although the RIAA used to function as a major force in safeguarding free speech and the First Amendment, the organization has of late taken a different direction, and become noticeably wish-washy on the issue of free speech, and in some instances seems even to be championing censorship.

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Guest post by Mike Masnick of Techdirt

It appears that many people don't remember this, but the RIAAused to bea major force in protecting free speech and the First Amendment. It had many good reasons to do so, after all, since free speech is very important to all of the artists that the RIAA's labels work with. Artistic expression -- especially in the musical realm -- has frequently come under attack by politicians and, for decades, the RIAA was actually a really important player in standing up for the First Amendment. See, for example, this 1992 article in the LA Times from then RIAA President Jason Berman, in whichhe lists out all the waysthat the RIAA has been fighting censorship. Yes, these are all specific in protecting musicians, but they were some really important First Amendment arguments to be made in these areas:

And that's just one article -- the first I found via a quick Google search. If you were interested in these issues in the 1980s, the RIAA was very involved in protecting the First Amendment.

So it's fairly ridiculous (if entirely expected) that the modern RIAA is destroying that historic legacy of protecting free speech by now cheering on global internet censorship. As we've discussed, Canada recently launched ahorrific attack on free speech, by saying that it can issue injunctions blocking entire sitesgloballyon mere accusations of infringement. Let's repeat that: the Canadian court is saying that, even before a trial has determined if there is actual infringement, it can order sites (in this case Google) to blockentire websites(not just pages involved in the infringement) -- and that it can do so globally. As we pointed out, this precedent is horrifying. What will happen when China demands all stories about Tiananmen Square be blocked globally? Or what happens when Saudi Arabia or Iran demands that pages supporting democratic reforms or LGBTQ rights must be taken down globally?

And yet, rather than condemn an overly broad ruling that will lead to global censorship, the RIAA sullied its own historical legacy andcheered on this global censorship ruling, claiming that it was "a win."

These days, the bosses at the RIAA have got so much "piracy-on-the brain" that they seem completely unable to (1) stick to a principled position on the First Amendment or (2) see how cheering on global censorship might come back to bite them as well.

See more here:

RIAA Trashes Its Legacy As 1st Amendment Supporter, Cheers On Global Internet Censorship [Op-Ed] - hypebot.com