Well, March 15 has come and gone, and the Recording Industry Association of America as done it once again. This time, they began a large scale assault against university students across America. Over 400 letters were sent to campuses to be distributed to the users of IP addresses which were "found" to be sharing music illegally over school networks using programs such as Limewire, Bitcomet, etc. You all know the drill. Anyway, these letters that were sent were an offer to the students, whose names and addresses are not even known by the record label representative, to settle their cases out of court before the RIAA discovered their names. The schools are responsible for finding the students based on the IP addresses given and delivering the notices. The RIAA also filed John Doe lawsuits against unnamed defendants, which will be replaced by law suits against individuals when their names are discovered.
Okay, I know. Its illegal to download music. Yes. However, the tactics being taken by the RIAA are becoming rather rediculous. This new barage of attacks against the customers whom the recording industry claims to serve is another afront to at least MY sense of dignity. Lets examine why: 1. College students do not have the money to purchase all the music they want to listen to at the prices that the record industry is charging right now, so its rediculous to assume that they will not be stealing some. 2. College students do not have the money to pay off the fines (which sometimes reach $700 per song shared) which the RIAA is levying against them; this will lead to students having to drop out to pay off the fines, thus decreasing the RIAA's profits after their victims join the workforce. And 3. The lawsuits are barely scratching the very first layer of the surface of the number of people downloading music.
The RIAA is getting out of hand. Several months ago, they brought a suit against an eastern European company for trillions of dollars. The Companies the RIAA represents don't make nearly that much in a year.
Moreover, the profits that the RIAA claims its clients are losing, they just aren't losing. The profits of the recording industry are down, yes, but not as much as they are telling the world. And with the prices they charge (between $15 and $20 per cd), I'm not surprised. Why not download some music from legal sites and pay for it? DRM. I don't see people, especially college students, paying 9.99 to be able to play their music on a computer, but not be able to transfer it to another computer or mp3 player. Its rediculous.
The RIAA needs to understand that the vast majority of people want to pay for music. They just want to download it first to make sure they aren't paying 20 bucks for crap. They need to understand that we want to be good customers, but if they keep suing us, we'll stop buying completely. I, for one, do not steal music, but I support the right of people to know what it is they are buying when they're paying so much for it.
RIAA, lower the prices, or get used to the downloading. Stop alienating your customers.
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RIAA is to me violating the RICO laws. Some times they violate laws to find people. Also RIAA doesnt share these royalties to their people. In fact the prce if the CD the artist gets very little.
You have to look at everything
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