According to an Associated Press story, The Recording Industry Association of America said it intends to sue more students and others on campuses in the next three months than it has in the past three years.
The recording industry said Wednesday that it was amplifying its legal offensive against online piracy on college campuses by sending hundreds of letters warning students at 13 schools that they will be sued if they don't accept settlement offers.
First I’d like to address these college students.
ARE YOU STUPID OR SOMETHING? Holy crap, you know the RIAA has been cracking down on file sharing for the last 3 years, and 18,000 computer users have been sued for swapping music online. What, you didn’t think you were going to get caught? The computer leads to your dorm, dummy. And you probably have to sign in to the school computers with your name and password, which leads the RIAA right back to you! Stop file sharing! You are going to get caught!
That aside, the RIAA is completely wrong to sue these students.
While these stupid people are technically breaking the law, the RIAA is using what I believe are illegal bully tactics to go after these students (really the only large group they can go after because public university computer records are technically school property and possibly subject to public open records law) and their reasoning is that these students are costing them money.
Well, according to two recent studies, that’s simply not true.
CLICK HERE These "music pirates" aren’t stealing anything they were going to buy in the first place. In fact, being that every record company gives away thousands of physical CDs for promotional purposes, music sharing is a practice that has been in place for a long, long time — by the companies the RIAA represents.
And, to highlight this practice further, record companies pummel larger newspapers, colleges publications, music and entertainment magazines and e-zine products with tons of music that never gets listened to. I remember my college paper would get dozens of CDs every week. We would end up reviewing four or five of them...tops!
The rest disappeared (usually thrown out). And who got billed for that useless product? The musicians. They have to pay for all of their promotional CDs (which according to the RIAA, are very expensive), whether they get listened to or not.
Plus, the RIAA’s lawsuits are damaging the already thin credibility of the music industry, an industry that already has the reputation on preying on the ignorance of both its talent base and target customer group. The fact is, music sales are down because the customers are ticked off. They know they’re being ripped off. And suing music swappers doesn’t help your image. It’s a huge black eye for the music industry that (after legal fees) can’t be making any money back for the RIAA’s cause.
I know that I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably say this again, but I really think the RIAA has completely overstepped its boundaries and in the next year or so there will be an investigation into the organizations actions and online music pricing structure. Until then, try to say off of file sharing services. There are plenty of free and legal ways to sample music out there.
