RIAA Sues College File Swappers
from the here-it-comes dept
After talking about it for a few years, the RIAA has finally put its lawyers where its brains are and have filed lawsuits against college students accused of file sharing. They've named four students in the suit. So, it's come to this? The music industry is actually starting to sue its own customers. It's still fairly stunning to me that the entire industry can not only be blind to what an opportunity file sharing is - but even worse, work so hard against the thing that is most likely to benefit them. I can't wait until the ridiculous estimates come out on just how much these four students "stole" from the music industry.
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Good.
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Re: Good.
While I agree that it's better for them to go after actual law breakers, in this case it's a really bad business decision. They're basically trying to sue people who are promoting their music. For free.
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Sigh
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Re: Sigh
Of course on the plus site Joe's annoying bot will stop indexing my website.
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Re: Sigh
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Re: Sigh
I think the fact that the RIAA is suing actual students is very different than the usual discussion on file sharing, and thus, is worth posting.
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sue its own customers?
Ignoring the confusing legal and ethical MP3/P2P issue (personally, I think the RIAA is shooting themselves in the foot - if P2P is bad then Radio must be truely evil), what amazes me is all the people who bitch about the RIAA, but still run with money in their sweaty little hands to buy the latest release of whatever crap MTV is hawking this week.
Show a bit of resolve - A simple boycott by the teaming masses of buying ANY music CD for a few days would put the message across to the RIAA that it's the CUSTOMERS that keep them in business and that as such, they need to be treated a whole lot better then they currently are.
Get Organized. Pick a week, market & promote the Boycott, then get all your teeny bopper friends to stick to it. The only agruement the RIAA will listen too is the one that hurts their bottom line.
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Re: sue its own customers?
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Boycotts
My own position on this is that yes, technically these students and others are stealing intellectual property. However, I consider that a good thing because it helps weaken support for copyright laws and also weakens the companies that are trying to enforce such laws.
I believe that there are two reasons that a law can be considered unjust or contrary to the interests of society, and therefore require extensive modification or repeal. One is when the law goes against the common understanding of what is just, right, or fair. The other is when the only way to enforce such a law is to have the government or other entities engage in practices that threaten the civil liberties ands privacy of
the citizenry. Although copyright laws are well within the bounds of what most people consider just, right, and fair they clearly violate the second catagory now that the age of the internet has dawned. These laws can no longer be effectively enforced without resorting to unprecedented amounts of invasion of privacy and restrictions on internet operations all the way up and down the line. Other examples of laws that fall into this catagory (IMHO) are most drug laws and laws against private consentual sexual activities like sodomy.
I believe that copyright laws need to be restricted to preventing people from making money from copyrighted materials (i.e. piracy), while allowing unfettered ability to copy and distribute such material without money exchanging hands. Some companies and artists may suffer from this sort of regime, and many may loose their jobs, but too bad. The liberty and privacy of the entire society outwieghs the needs of the few.
As for boycotts, I would suggest selecting the weakest of the record companies and attempting to boycott their products totally until they go out of business or are forced to sell themselves to someone else. That would get a message across.
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