RIAA spokesperson denies proclaiming DRM 'dead'

The principal spokesperson for the Recording Industry Association of America -- whose name, for all who are interested, is correctly spelled Jonathan Lamy, not "Larry" -- denied telling an SC Magazine reporter, even off the cuff, that "DRM is dead," calling it a "blatantly inaccurate quote."

Lamy provided Betanews with an excerpt of his actual e-mail with the reporter, Deb Radcliff. As part of a discussion about consumers' continued willingness to bypass digital rights management schemes for digital music, for a story Radcliff was writing for SC, Lamy said, "There is virtually no DRM on music anymore, at least on download services, including iTunes." He went on to state that MP3s today tend to be sold without any DRM included anyway, with the interest of consumers being able to play tracks on any device.

But that's in the music business, which he represents. It's TV networks and movie studios that continue to use DRM for videos that are distributed through services including iTunes -- so for them, DRM is not dead.

According to Lamy, Radcliff sent a protest e-mail to Ernesto, the TorrentFreak writer who originated the misquote, demanding a retraction. "When the most vocal forefighters of DRM say so, it must be for real," Ernesto wrote yesterday.

Naturally, the misquote was repeated by multiple sources this afternoon, none of whom sought Lamy's verification.