Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Nail in the Coffin

Is this the end of the music industry?

Still, hardly a month goes by without a news release from the industry's lobby, the Recording Industry Association of America, touting a new wave of letters to college students and others demanding a settlement payment and threatening a legal battle.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

Wow, how do you enforce something like this?  Why would the music industry (at least that part of it represented by the RIAA) go on a crusade against the fans and consumers that keep them in jobs in the first place? 

Now, the brief doesn't charge the guy with taking his own CDs and putting them into his own computer, but with putting them into a public folder on his computer, which could be accessed by others.  So  the issue is still unauthorized distribution, just on a much smaller scale than one of the P2P networks.

I would argue that the RIAA's days are numbered. EMI is pulling their "protection" money as the new CEO there has realized the RIAA hasn't actually been effective in stopping the decline of the theft or in recouping lost revenues through lawsuits.

Even with 20,000 people sued (whose restitution payments, when convicted, would have to be split between the big four major labels), EMI is still giving the RIAA millions every year to represent them. EMI has realized the millions could be better spent elsewhere internally to deal with fixing the problem of shrinking sales rather than having someone police a format shift that should have been monetized FIRST, then sanctioned.

Until then, I suggest folks only support music created by NON-RIAA affiliated artists and labels. There is zero fear of recrimination if they find your computer is filled with music they don't represent.

Can you think of any other industry or trade group that is so hell bent on alienating its consumer base?

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