PrettyFakes

the riaa now says it won’t prosecute users with just a few “stolen” songs—after massive public vitriol probably stunned them.

legally and ethically, i agree with their original contention: downloading an mp3 is stealing—just like boosting a poison cassingle from the camelot in the mall was stealing in ‘91 (uhmm, not that i ever would steal “unskinny bop” personally, you understand).

their position now is incompatible: if it’s stealing, it’s stealing. and it still leaves open how much you can steal. five songs? twenty? fifty?

i swore off “file-sharing”—a far too innocous title—when i moved to jax, less for ethics than for practicality; i’m not wired in at home, and there’s no need in cluttering a law firm’s station with stolen songs. i have sympathy for their plight, but in the same way i think mandatory sentencing for stealing, say, a copy of free willy 2 or three golf clubs is ridiculous, i think that $150,000 a song is outlandish.

so what’s an audience-hating artist-looting organization to do?

1. perhaps start a publicity campaign with some recognizable artists asking their fans not to steal. downside: easily mocked, perhaps stymied by c. love and others publicly attacking it.

2. try and get more injunctions against peer-to-peer programs? downside: many are based out of the country.

3. what about . . . jeez. yah, they’re screwed.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2003 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Gorjus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.