| Subject: The RIAA needs to get a life |
Author:
Betty
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Date Posted: 12:49:45 08/15/04 Sun
In reply to:
Betty
's message, "RIAA & goofy laws." on 17:09:22 02/01/04 Sun
The RIAA again, has stepped up the battle even more, taking file traders to court, suing little kids in an appalling attempt to terrorize other little kids. Bullies, cowards!
Continuing their weird and unsupportable assertion that each and every downloaded file was a lost sale, they claimed that the kids (many of the kids having no money to spend) were costing them billions in lost profits. This despite plenty of counter evidence, some from the artists themselves, that file sharing actually increased sales by allowing fans to discover music they might otherwise have never heard.
The RIAA can crunch numbers all they want from now until Britney Spears records a tribute album to Paul Robeson, but they will never be able to produce a "lost revenue" number that actually makes sense. It's a waste of time, a downloaded file is not a lost sale, and can't be tallied as such. There are way too many variables left out of the equation: downloaded files that led to the listener to search out the CD and purchase it being the most obvious one, followed by downloaded files that the listener thought were so bad that they cleared it from their hard drive with all due speed. There are, no doubt, that portion of downloaders who have no intention ever of buying any music. Still, the "lost sale" scenario-building has so many logical fallacies built-in that it is literally pointless; and yet it seems to be the RIAA's overwhelming obsession. Surely it would be better to address the things that can be known?
Tops on that list is the one fact that consumers have consistently told the RIAA: CDs cost too much. They cost way too much. The price of CDs is the number one cause of any supposed "lost sales," and yet it is the one area that the RIAA refuses to address, preferring to obsess over non-numbers rather than genuine real-world numbers.
What's all this have to do with your iPod, you ask? Thanks for asking and getting me back on track. Senate Bill S.2560 is what it's about, "A bill to amend chapter 5 of title 17, United States Code, relating to inducement of copyright infringement, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary." Recently, Senator Orrin Hatch took the floor to introduce proposed changes that would make certain technology, software and hardware manufacturers liable for prosecution for the behavior of some of the people using their technology.
The theory here is that these companies are "inducing" children to break the law, thus causing irreparable harm to children. This is not satire on my part, this is the language Hatch uses again and again. He compares the technology companies to "Fagins" and the children as hapless little Oliver Twists, forced to do the bidding of the techies. "Honest, Guv'nah! ‘Twas he who made me do it. I'm just a poor ‘armless little urchin, I am."
You can read Hatch beating the metaphor yourself at http://thomas.loc.gov. Search S.2560 and follow a couple of links, and you'll find it. I'd print the actual link, but it's way too long. Suffice it to say that you always know someone's on their last desperate argument when they roll out the old weepy "Who will think of the children?" routine.
This is not to say that the bill can't do harm. In spite of Hatch's and the other bill sponsors' assertions to the contrary, the description of what exactly constitutes "inducement" does seem rather broad to my non-attorney eyes. It is easy to see where, given this law, the RIAA could use it as a weapon in court to sue pretty much whomever they wanted. Is Apple, with its iPod, inducing children to steal music? Let's take it to court to find out! Many articles have speculated that Apple could be forced to stop making the iPod.
As I said at the start, RIAA, and you really need to hear this, because this is not just me talking, if I can't put it on my iPod, then you've got nothing I want. If you are that worried about "the children (sob)" then quit suing children in court. This fantasy you have that you will maintain total control of music is delusional and harmful and not even in your best interest; nurture and build the market you have while there is still time!
And as to all the little Oliver Twists out there, I don't want to induce you to anything — stealing music is bad — however, given no other choice, by legislation that continues relentlessly to constrict your options, you need to fight like hell, fight ferociously like spitting-mad cornered wolverines, against corporate bodies like the RIAA who see you as nothing but soulless obeying consumerbots, and would have you defined as such in the law of the land.
Fight them, fight them!
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