Big Music’s RIAA: still harassing students
p2pnet view P2P | RIAA:-The RIAA isn’t dead. It only smells that way.
Efforts by Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US, but controlled by a Canadian) to use their misnamed Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to gain exclusive control of how, and by whom, music is distributed online by suing their own customers, became one of the biggest travesties in modern times.
Instead, the Big 4 ‘trade’ unit told music lovers around the world how to share online.
RIAA efforts have now been largely superseded by the Three Strikes element of the entertainment industry’s ACTA business plan. But vestiges of the RIAA sue ‘em all scam not only live on, they’ve been picked up by other corporate MAFIA outfits.
“Students at some Hudson Valley colleges who illegally share digital, copyrighted music could end up doing community service, shut off from Internet use — or thrown out of school — as a penalty”, says the Poughkeepsie Journal.
Along with the MPAA “and other trade organizations” the RIAA has “placed colleges across the country under particular scrutiny for digital copyright violation”, says the story, going on >>>
Instead of lawsuits, industry organizations representing the recording industry, motion-picture industry, software and video-game industries send colleges and universities notices when they discover that a user of the school’s computer network has illegally shared a digital, copyrighted file. The recording industry then leaves it up to the school to take action.
Among the schools nationwide to have received these notices are the State University of New York at New Paltz, Marist and Vassar colleges in Poughkeepsie and Bard College in Annandale.
“When we would meet with students, they would tell us, ‘We didn’t know; we didn’t think we’d get caught; everybody downloads,’ ” said D.B. Brown, dean of students at Vassar College. “We would get different versions of getting pulled over doing 100 in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.”
RIAA employee Jonathan Lamy (right) is quoted as saying sharing music online “is the primary reason for a drastic reduction in music sales in recent years”.
Yet somehow, “interest in digital music sales has skyrocketed, with 139.4 million digital songs sold in 2004; and 1.1 billion digital songs sold last year”, the Poughkeepsie Journal points out, adding:
“In 2009, digital music sales accounted for 40 percent of the recording industry’s revenue.”
(Cheers, RW)
… and identi.ca
ACTA business plan – ACTA emergency communique, June 21, 2010
Poughkeepsie Journal – College students face penalties for sharing music files, June 29, 2010
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