RIAA Brings In 1000 "Criminals"

On Friday the lobby group that works on behalf of the large, mostly foreign-owned, music conglomerates that own the music copyrights and distribution channels confirmed that it was serving subpoenas at the rate of 75 a day on US citizens for the crime of sharing the music they love. See this website for the whole article.

Oh, brother. What a joke of an organization the RIAA is. But the news is not all bad. Now Kazza and Grokster are working on "Cloaking Devices". So while "he RIAA is beside itself with glee: and boasted that a thousand music-lovers had already been busted," file sharing is about to strike back, giving the RIAA the punk-stick.

And they deserve it. If a congressman seeking re-election gets up and prosecutes 1000 voters who said they didn't support his views on a single issue, he may lose 1000 people who would have voted for him anyway. So that's 1000 less votes he will receive. Likewise, that is 1000 less CDs the music industry will sell in the future for multiple reasons. 1.)The people are more than likely disgusted with this seedy organization. 2.)They'll be broke if the RIAA wins.

And it is ridiculous to think that KaZaa users don't buy a single album. Most use file sharing to determine whether a CD is worth buying to begin with. Due to "cheaters", a group of file sharers who either run low bandwidth, carry small libraries, or cut downloads, it is nearly impossible in most cases to download entire albums.

Personally, I have used file sharing to download songs by artists who don't get played in the U.S. (because of the RIAA who control MOST radio media), and later purchased the album.

In the end, the music fan will win. KaZaa will beat the RIAA and we'll be back at square one.