Monday - May 05, 2008
slow day & RIAA (good rhyme, eh?)
So classes are done. Grades are in. It's a good day, but it's *slow*!
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Here at work, we've been getting emails on a more and more regular basis from the RIAA. Now, to be sure, I am *not* an advocate of stealing music.... mostly because all of the stuff that is being downloaded/traded is just crap! But it's the principle of the thing as well. Filesharing apps are indeed used to download music that one doesn't own. That's a bad thing. BUT.....
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...while I can understand the RIAA's position, their tactics are little (okay, a LOT) heavy-handed. They've sued little kids (or at least 14 year olds) & their parents. Now they are threatening colleges and universities - basically trying to hold the institution liable for the infractions of students and/or faculty. Granted, if there is a systematic "non-regulated" filesharing setup on a campus, the institution must try to undo the setup. No one would argue against that, I don't think. The emails we've been getting from the RIAA want the institution to stop allowing the music to be uploaded. Now, to be fair, since they are coming from the non-student network, it means the tunes are from faculty or staff. Some of the translated IP addresses, though, are static IP addresses that I absolutely *know* are not the culprits. My windows-based machines are locked down using DeepFreeze & my Macs are wiped clean with Radmind. So there's no way that these machines can "hold" the tunes that the RIAA is complaining about.
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Of course, the RIAA is getting Congress in on the act. There's a bill that would force higher ed institutions to make publically available the techniques that are used to stop the filesharing, etc. The worst part is that one of the potential penalties is the removal of all financial aid for students. So as I said, I think that's jsut a bit heavy-handed.
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My suggestion for the RIAA is to convince the record companies (who are in the "death throes" of survival) that kids will not - or more accurately CAN not - spend $20 for a CD. Most of the CD's coming out now are shit. The kids want maybe one song. The album (that's what we used to call them in the olden times....) is shit - so the kids decide not to pay the $20 (I don't blame them) for a CD that is shit. They decide to "steal" it. Not a cool thing. but what do you expect - if a kid wants shit, should he really be reprimanded for wanting it?
The RIAA is just a bit lame.... The recording industry is dying anyhow... so this will all be a moot point in the next 5 years (probably) anyhow....
Posted: Monday - May 05, 2008 at 03:46 PM
