Cary Sherman - Biography

Cary H. Sherman is currently the President of the Recording Industry Association of America as has been for the past 13 years.

Education

Sherman graduated from Cornell University in 1968, and Harvard Law School in 1971.

Career

Sherman is an officer of the board of the Levine School of Music in Washington, D.C., and has also served in advisory roles for the Anti-Defamation League, BNA’s Patent, Trademark and Copyright Journal, the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts, The Computer Law Association, the Copyright Society, and The Computer Lawyer. He worked for twenty six years as a senior partner at Arnold & Porter (Washington, D.C. firm), where he led the firm's Intellectual Property and Technology Practice Group. Starting in 2001, he now serves as the RIAA's President, representing the interests of the $8 billion dollar United States sound recording industry. His work involves coordination and regulation of the industry's business, policy and legal objectives while his obligations remain primarily in technology, government affair issues, licensing and enforcement of rules and regulations. Furthermore, he is the co-author of a two-volume work titled, "Computer Software Protection Law."

Efforts to Eliminate Piracy

The RIAA originally attempted to combat the negative effects of piracy by pursuing individual pirates with costly lawsuits. However, while these lawsuits gained media attention, many people still did not consider what there were doing as wrong in any way. Furthermore, some of the lawsuits hurt the RIAA's reputation, for example when they targeted a sixty-six year old grandmother, a twelve year old honor student, a seventy nine year old man who didn't even own a computer, and a woman who was dead at the time the charges were pressed. After exhausting their options with individual lawsuits, the RIAA has decided to switch over to focusing on and targeting internet service providers and demanding them to take responsibility for what their subscribers are doing with their internet service.

Public Reputation

Sherman has been recognized as one of the best copyright attorneys in the United States. However, because copyright activists do not approve of his work on behalf of the music industry, he also has received the reputation among many as being unconcerned with the wider negative effects on society from his advocacy. There has also been controversy surrounding Sherman's salary, which reaches about $1.33 million dollars in annual compensation. The controversy comes from that fact that there has been a drastic increase to his salary size in recent years, yet the RIAA has not been very successful in the outcomes of lawsuits and in being a highly profitable entity.