IMO, The RIAA is one of those cases where it was created out of good intentions, but has become nothing but a false face for recording companies to hide behind while they greedily attempt to force money out of innocent people.
Attacking individuals in a vigilante effort to gain monetary compensation for an ephemeral form of merchandise is just downright SLIMEY.
It also reveals the extent of their greed. The majority of the 'pirated' music out there will die with the technology that it is held on. Most people out there have NO CLUE on how to backup their files, yet alone the understanding that they would need to do it OFTEN to ensure their files are saved. And even this is not enough to ensure that the files are maintained. The majority of backups made by consumers (the target of the RIAA) would be made to writable CDs. And it's been proven that this form of media is not a reliable long-term backup media. Even under IDEAL conditions, after a few years MOST burnable CDs are no longer readable, being the victim of "CD-ROT".
So once a user's computer dies their music is usually dead and gone.
Which just brings to light another of the RIAA's greedy tactics.
They want to charge EVEN MORE for digital copies of their client's music.
I say, if they expect people to PAY for the electronic versions of the music, they should be REQUIRED to compensate the consumer by distributing a HARD-COPY of the music with every album purchased electronically. If the consumer is going to be paying REAL money for a electronic copy that has digital protection and will not last as long as the physical version, then the consumer should be entitled to a manufactured cd version as well. It costs NOTHING for music companies to make another copy of their electronic file, then slap some digital protection on it and charge REAL money for it. It's PURE PROFIT for them.
So why shouldn't they be required to send a HARD-COPY to the consumers who purchase the electronic versions of the music?
The argument has ALSO been made that the consumers are paying for the CONVIENENCE of using the internet to download the electric versions.
Well if this is so, then the money paid is going for the convenience, not for the content, and that would mean that the RIAA considers the CONVIENENCE worth the price, and not the music. Which means the RIAA would have NO stance for suing people who trade said 'worthless' content.
Basically it's plain old GREED that causes these lawsuits on individuals.
And I CAN'T WAIT to see the RIAA lose on the grounds that there is NO WAY they can prove without a REASONABLE DOUBT that someone else didn't use the lady in the linked article to download the SIX SONGS.
Six songs is NEVER worth THOUSANDS of dollars. I'd fight it too.
The RIAA can't prove that any profit was lost from their company for one individual downloading a mere
SIX songs.
This lawsuit is 100% GREEDY RIAA dog-shit.
It's shit like this that strengthens my resolve to NEVER purchase a new CD from a RIAA artist again.
I'll buy USED CDs and support my local economy, but will NEVER buy a NEW CD again.
Hmm...
It's totally legal to buy and sell USED legally purchased copyrighted material...
I think there's an untapped market out there for a online retailer to resell USED copies of legally purchased electronic content as long as it's original and not copied, but MOVED from the seller to the buyer.
Meaning the retailer has only as many copies available in the 'store' as were bought by the store from a previous user. This would undoubtedly be a way to smack the RIAA in the face in that it would give users a LEGAL option to purchase USED electronic content at a rebated price over ORIGIANL electronic content.
Use their DMC files against them by offering a 'used' electronic file at a discounted price.
Meaning STORE buys purchased content from a user who doesn’t want it anymore at a price of 25% the current market value, then the STORE offers said content file to be purchased by a user at 50% current market value.
If the CMV stays static, the STORE makes a 25% profit on the file.
The original seller should not have any problem with cheaper content being available because if they did their job and implemented a digital copyright correctly, then the content will be marked that it is not original and so will not be as good quality. Such as all copies of the content sold at the STORE would have a the number of copies made maxed out in it’s DMC stamp, so the content would only be playable on a PC, and not downloadable to a device. This non-transferability to a portable device would give users an incentive to purchasing an original version.
Also the content bought & sold from the retailer will be deleted from the server on sale of all inventories so as to maintain the number of copies in circulation, and so would cause NO decrease in the value by flooding the market.
Another bonus for this would be that the consumer would have a means to liquidate their music investments if they decide to replace their PC hardware. It would cause a loss for the consumer in that they paid more for the file than they were selling it for, but such would still be preferable to total loss of purchased music property.
Of course said STORE would not deal in uncopyrighted file types, such as mp3s, wav, mid, etc.
As that could result in a flooding of the store of materials copied by the user. It’d be comparable to a physical reseller store buying ‘personally burned CDs or mix CDs’ from some for sale.
Play-lists though could be a possible content available. User only sees the title of play-list, creator & creation date, and purchases the list for a minimal price. And the user only gains the LIST of songs, but not the songs themselves, so to compile the actual content the user would have to turn to either the used content or the original songs.
Hmmm... An Electronic used content reseller… Interesting concept.
I think I may have a new pet project to add to my project list.
Articles:
Grrrr! *Pisses on RIAA*
Here's two separate thoughts I had today while following the ID story reported on NPR.
NPR is reporting on Bush defending his "anti-terror" tactics 
Ok.
*Slaps forehead*
