Information week reports that the RIAA recently sent out 400 letters to 13 U.S. universities regarding potential lawsuits against selected students over copyright infringement (link via Paul Stamatiou). The Industry plans to send out hundreds of these letters each month.
The spin on this story is that the lucky recipients of these letters are directed to a website called P2P Lawsuits. P2PLawsuits.com cheerfully poses the question, “Do You Want to Settle a Case Online?”. By the power of the Internets, P2PLawsuits.com makes it quick and easy to pay off the RIAA so they’ll get off your back.
“This site will guide you through the settlement process for your case. You can pay the settlement by credit card, using either Mastercard, Visa or Discover. If you wish to pay the settlement by cashier’s check, you will need to telephone one of our settlement representatives.”
What a great use of technology, eh? The RIAA finally got it. The power of the Internets was meant to scare music fans out of future downloads by making them buy the RIAA lunch.
When can we expect the P2PLawsuits.com social network?
P2PLawsuits.com seems like a giant magnifier to the RIAA’s perversion of our justice system. It’s quite obvious that they’re not interested in actually going to court, but would rather create the threat of a lawsuit and then get a quick payment out of court. These payments are a drop in the ocean for the RIAA, but enough of your money to cause heartache.
I wonder if this aversion to the actual courtroom has anything to do with the fact that recently, the RIAA has been losing in court.
According to the RIAA’s President Cary Sherman, the purpose of this campaign is to educate young people on the consequences of illegal bootlegging.
“We need to address this demographic,” RIAA President Cary Sherman said. “Remember that the habits that they form in college will stay with them for a lifetime.”
Cary’s point is taken, but the methodology eludes me. Suing beer money from college students only teaches them how to hate you for it. For anyone who can’t (or refuses to) realize that, I seriously doubt their ability to amalgamate their organization’s business with our changing culture.
The Information Week article also offered some statistics regarding the effect of illegal downloading on music sales:
“The record industry, which has seen sales plunge by more than 23 percent between 2000 to 2006, wants music lovers to purchase digital music over legal Web sites like Apple Inc.’s iTunes Music Store or RealNetworks Inc.’s Rhapsody.”
Downloading music illegally is wrong, but it’s not an excuse for the atrocious state of digital music. Seeing how well technology facilitates illegal bootlegging, it’s obvious a serious bout of innovation could use technology to make it even easier to sell music legitimately. Instead, all the RIAA can come up with is a ridiculous site that accepts credit card payouts from the customers they’re alienating.
If I could find and buy a high quality digital copy of any song I wanted instantly, at the right price, and without tyrannical restrictions on how and where I can listen to it, I’d jump all over that service. But, I don’t purchase music from iTunes, Rhapsody, or any other digital music outlets. I’m still buying and ripping CDs because I refuse to spend one cent on a DRM-crippled digital track.
That’s what I think. What about you?
