RIAA Warns Individual Swappers

Joey Patterson writes "CNET News.com reports that the RIAA has sent cease-and-desist letters to four individuals for allegedly pirating its music on P2P networks." They have yet to publicly release the names of who they have contacted, but 4 of the 5 were Verizon subscribers involved with their previous high profile case.

Comments

Gripe/Rant About RIAA Posts

[goldspider]

OK I'm going to spend a few kharma points to get my point across, but I have made a few observation about the nature of these RIAA stories that just have gotten under my skin.

First of all, these people aren't 'swapping' anything. That implies a trade where one item (or file) is exchanged for another one, with an implied transfer of ownership. They are COPYING music from one another, not trading it (and trading CDs is NOT illegal, contrary to what some seem to believe).

And that brings me to rant #2. It's easy to regard the RIAA as an Evil(tm) organization when you read (and believe) some of the things people claim the RIAA believes/practices. People here have claimed that the RIAA wants such things as making individual backups of personal CDs, and playing said backups on their computer illegal, and that is simply not true! People make these claims without providing a shred of evidence to back up their assertions. They might as well be accusing Hillary Rosen of violating young children, with as much proof they base their statements on.

Please read this article which clarifies many of the misconceptions about the RIAA's position on fair usage. I think some of you will be very surprised (I know I was).

Is the RIAA perfect? Not even close. But putting words into their mouth for the sake of tricking people into thinking you know something they don't is no way to conduct an honest and meaningful discussion.