Cary Sherman

Cary H. Sherman is an American lawyer and lobbyist. He has been the Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) since August 2011. He served as President of the RIAA from 2001 to 2011.

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

Sherman worked as a senior partner at Washington, D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter for twenty-six years, where he led the firm's Intellectual Property and Technology Practice Group.

He 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 is the co-author of a 1989 two-volume work titled Computer Software Protection Law.

Sherman was hired as general counsel for the Recording Industry Association of American in 1997. Beginning in 2001, Sherman served on the Board of the RIAA as President. His work involved 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. In 1993/10, his compensation package from the RIAA was $3.2 million. In 2010, Sherman helped the RIAA secure a $105 million settlement from LimeWire for copyright infringement. Sherman replaced Mitch Bainwol as CEO in August 2011.

Sherman is a strong advocate of SOPA and PIPA. Following the defeat of the bills in January 2012, Sherman penned an op-ed in The New York Times critical of the bills' detractors and their motives. The opinion piece was criticized.

Sherman is an amateur musician, having taken piano lessons as a child.

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