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RIAA Chats With Song Swappers
einer writes "Orignally seen
on Drudge; in reaction to their recent loss in court, an IM was sent to 'hundreds of thousands' of grokster and Kazaa users by the RIAA warning that they were NOT anonymous and that they could face legal consequences if they did not stop sharing copyrighted material. The IM was sent to users hosting copyrighted songs for download. Is this a scare tactic or an honest attempt to reform the p2p user community, or both?"
Yes, the record labels take advantage of artists, promote crap and pull all sorts of nasty tricks and yes the RIAA has completely bungled the whole p2p issue for years and they are mean to their customers (to say the least) but that doesn't give anyone the right to steal from them.
Just because the owner of a store is a jerk, or charges too much, or whatever, doesn't give me the right to steal from him.
I certainly don't believe the "trial period" arguement either, you can't just drive a car out of a dealership and claim that its okay because you'll return the car if you don't like it.
There are certain rules that keep society from falling apart. Unfortunately the internet has become a magic invisibillity ring that allows anyone to break the rules and get away with it.
The least we can do is stop pretending that the RIAA is the issue and own up to the fact that we are stealing music. If the RIAA wants to spam or prosecute offenders or otherwise make their lives miserable that's completely their perogative. The music industry is finally getting around to providing fair alternatives to piracy (the iTunes Music Store) and it is in everyone's interest that we use them.
If the internet continues to be a place where responsibillity is non-existent and theft is rampant than The Powers That Be will be forced to control the internet much more tightly and that's in nobody's best interest.
I REALLY really, and I mean REALLY dont understand why this is such a big deal. REALLY. This whole file sharing business about copyrighted files is so simple-- I agree that the product (content / music) in this case belongs to the publisher (RIAA). Therefore it is illegal to give away (publish) to untold thousands of other people. Now the whole p2p thing is a completely different issue - those are legal entities as proven by the earlier court case. But lets say the RIAA ticks you off right, and you want to listen to music. There are tons of good bands out there that will offer their music for free download (check mp3.com for one example) or for quite cheap on CD (5-9$ which is reasonable IMO). I have not purchased a CD in 2 years because of this whole mess - it is so easy to live without "popular" music, because it is HONESTLY not any better than the music that is not "popular". Oh, but do whatever people. I'll just sit in this corner with my indie music, safely away from the fanning flames.