CAOS Weekly Philosophy:My mom has my back RIAA

[Brad Nunnally]

Read this nice little atricle where some mothers are taking to fight to the RIAA. We have our own version of MAD now. The question is whether or not the fight is worth it or not anymore.

LINK:Mothers taking up the Fight

Anyone who pays attention knows that RIAA cases are crap for the most part, due to the fact the it is the record companies that are losing money rather than the artists. Is this a group where if everyone ignored might finally go away? Or should we get more Mom's on our side, cause everyone knows hell hath no fury like a Mother. I know this is an old argument, but I think it is time to ask if an outcome of the battle should be called? With the advent of iTunes, and its various clones, music in the form of an electronic file is here and not going away anytime soon. Now you have artist who will give away their CD's in MP3 format to their fans. With this kinds of freebies, can the RIAA make the case any longer? If they do, how can we make them go away?

"Change in all things is sweet."
Aristotle

[Bryan]

fuck the RIAA and it's strong arm tactics.  The people that are the real offenders will never be caught.  Why? because it's the nerds of the world that are the offenders and you sure as hell aint gonna find us.  They're picking on the bottom of the barrel because it's easy.

[Tyler]

No matter how much I hate what the RIAA is doing when they sue grandparents and teenagers, I will admit that they probably have a legal right to do it as the copyright holders.  

Now I don't think they should be the copyright holders and I think it's them losing money, not the artists.  But most importantly, I would think by now they would realize that it's a battle they are losing.

I've said the same thing ever since Napster was taken down years ago.  For every computer programmer making $35,000 a year making DRM (digital rights management) programs to protect DVDs, CDs, etc, there are 100 kids in their basements on their parents' computer trying to break it.  It's a battle they can't win.  By suing filesharers, all they are going to do is to force people to write more anonymous file sharing programs where data is encrypted and you can no longer tell what it being sent or where it is being sent to.

People need to learn when a battle cannot be won.  Whether they have a legitmate claim or not, they do not have the resources to outthink/outperform/outcode hundreds of thousands of people that want free music and dvds.

[Jonathan Birch]

tfizzle wrote:
People need to learn when a battle cannot be won.  Whether they have a legitmate claim or not, they do not have the resources to outthink/outperform/outcode hundreds of thousands of people that want free music and dvds.

Except that they don't have to - My impression is that the RIAA (in league with the MPAA) is trying to change the national ethos regarding copyright infringement. They don't need to outthink everyone, just make some people scared and other people feel guilty. As long as they manage to do this to a decent number of people, the rest don't matter. Business is always a "some of the people, some of the time" affair.

[Brad Nunnally]

Saw this and thought it pertained to this subject. A store has started a Buy It, Burn It, Return It. policy.