[Infowarrior] - More on.... RIAA wins its first piracy trial

[Richard Forno]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Tom Fairlie 
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 18:34:17 -0500
To: <dave at farber.net>
Cc: <rforno at infowarrior.org>
Subject: Re: [IP] RIAA wins its first piracy trial

Wow! The mind boggles.

- The recording industry grows fat after 50 solid years
    of exploiting both fans and artists
    (e.g., as sales volumes have skyrocketed and the
    price of manufacturing a CD has fallen from several
    dollars to several cents, the retail price has still risen;
    ask an artist what their cut of that retail price is)
    [Note: and yes, I know that many artists owe their
    success to the industry's marketing apparatus]
- A grassroots community forms (i.e., *had* to form) in
    order to innovate a better solution
- The recording industry punishes Napster instead of
    innovating (even after the fact) a comparable solution
    based on what the most obvious research shows that
    customers want
- Additional methods evolve for fans to get what they want,
    including both free/illegal music and pay/legal services
- Artists also start offering free/cheap downloads directly
    to fans ('They Might Be Giants' may have pioneered this
    with their 'Dial-A-Song' line back in 1983)
- The recording industry reacts to all of these innovations
    by getting mad: at Apple (for being successful with a
    fixed price); at artists (for daring to skirt their system);
    and at fans (by taking thousands to court)
    ...again, no innovation planned
- This week, a downloader of songs (perhaps not even intentional)
    was ordered to pay $9,250 for each of 24 songs
- Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, says "Win or lose, people
    will understand that we are out there trying to protect our rights."

Well, she won, and we certainly understand what they're trying
to do. I guess all we can hope for now is for the next paradigm
to appear and finally put them out of business completely. I know
many people are working on this right now and I wish them all the
luck in the world.

Tom Fairlie

PS. Did the AP fire their editors? The article contained this choice
quote: "That was an effort to counter an industry witness's assertion
that the songs on the old drive got __their__ too fast to have come
from CDs she owned - and therefore must have been downloaded illegally."