The RIAA hates us all

Subject: The RIAA hates us all Tue Jan 01, 2008 6:54 pm

It's the last IT Blogwatch of 2007: in which the Recording Industry Association of America is loved by precisely nobody (not even the artists it claims to represent).

In an unusual case ... the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further ... [the RIAA] maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer ... Whether customers may copy their CDs onto their computers -- an act at the very heart of the digital revolution -- has a murky legal foundation, the RIAA argues.

The RIAA argues that the copies from the CDs are not in fact legal copies - they are actually "unauthorised reproductions," and that the personal use intent was irrelevant ... this is the first time the organisation has attempted to actually stand behind that threat ... Happy 2008, music fans.

It's even worse than that, it turns out. The RIAA is actually trying to rewrite copyright law on the fly ... This is so clearly not against the law that I'm shocked the RIAA would bother with the attempt. Why, oh why, does the music industry insist on making things hard for itself? Apparently because it's run by complete bozos ... No sane company sues its customers. Adoption is the bread of economic life.

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins predicts the RIAA will die in 2008:

In late November, EMI ... announced that they’d be “substantially cutting their funding to industry’s trade bodies.” ... A couple days [later] Warner Music Group announced that they made less than half the amount of money that Radiohead did for the year. The cause? A significant portion of the proceeds from artist creativity went directly to suing the customers by way of contributions to the RIAA ... Prince this year was so disappointed by the fact that the RIAA had been unable to stop the piracy of his music by suing 12 year olds that he took to suing them himself.

Link

Subject: Re: The RIAA hates us all Tue Jan 01, 2008 7:09 pm

"Prince this year was so disappointed by the fact that the RIAA had been unable to stop the piracy of his music by suing 12 year olds that he took to suing them himself."

Damned monarchist!

The RIAA hates us all

The RIAA hates us all

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