Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the witnesses.
I guess I'd start by saying that now you see what we have to deal with, so welcome.
I do sympathize a great deal with the Recording Industry Association's position. They're an industry that has been decimated, frankly, by the fact that we haven't been able to put protections in place that would re-establish the marketplace for music. I think they have seen about three-quarters of a billion dollars of their total revenues wiped out, and they're looking at the ephemeral rights and saying this is really important to them because their industry has gone from well in excess of $1 billion to $400 million, and they're hurting. I don't question for a minute that the Recording Industry Association is hurting and that comes back on artists.
The government's position on this, and I think this is an item of consistency on our part, is that we don't think you should have to keep paying for the same rights over and over again. That's been our position. There has been a lot of debate on this committee about some kind of digital copying levy, or an iPod tax as we have referred to it. What we've said is that if you buy the music, you should be able to put it onto a format that you want to listen to it on.
What you're saying is this: we have no problem in paying for music--we pay $65 million a year for music--but why can't we get the music in a format that we can actually play it in and why are we paying again to be able to play the music in the format in which we use it?
Isn't that your argument?