RIAA file sharing travesty
p2p news / p2pnet: Various ways to boot Apple Macs on foreign (to Apple) systems have held the mainstream press corpse rapt for days, now, but none of its members have are bothering with the fact the Big Four Organized Music cartel is trying to sue Carma Walls when her family doesn’t own a computer and isn’t even online.
Missing something of this nature isn’t unusual for the corporate media elite who, it seems, jump to attention only when the Big Four’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) comes out with yet another of its specious ‘p2p criminals’ press releases.
Warner Music, Vivendi Universal, EMI and Sony BMG claim they’re being ruined by file sharers, that file sharing is causing untold financial losses to artists, serious grief to music industry support workers, that it’s a crime right up there with robbery and rape, and that anyone who engages in it is a vicious thief, out to destroy the American (or French, or British, or Japanese – depends on where you are) way.
Accordingly, in the US, they’ve launched subpoenas, calling them ‘law suits,’ at around 19,000 American families they accuse of being p2p criminals.
Nothing has been stolen, no money has changed hands and no sales have been lost. But that fact is entirely ignored.
In this latest travesty, the Big Four’s RIAA claims the Walls family in Rockmark, Georgia, are among those wreaking online, p2p havoc.
Mr Walls wonders, “How can they sue us when we don’t even have a computer?”
Well, Mr Walls, that’s a mere detail. The RIAA says you’re guilty of something, even though it’s not on the books as a crime, and that’s enough.
And so far, the only example of what might be called mainstream media attention comes in a ‘Times’ news story, and a UPI (United Press International) report. But it’s the Korea Times and UPI isn’t exactly on top of the situation, saying, authoritatively, that only 3,500 Americans have been targetted since 2003.
Meanwhile, over at the Apple HQ in Cupurtino, California ….
Also See:
doesn’t own – RIAA nails family with no computer, April 24, 2006
April 26th, 2006 at 1:08 am
The big four should be taken to court for ripping off the consumer for the last ten years. Putting out bad music boasting, “72 minutes of Music” when only two or three tracks are any good. And having the gaul to be calling it a good deal on an $18.98 list price.
When will they learn to stop cutting off thier nose despite thier face.
An indie music store owner.
April 26th, 2006 at 5:28 am
You spelled “their” wrong twice! and the phrase is “Cut your nose off to spite your face.” Stop trying to sound like the intellegent indie record store owner and realize that you probably sell albums at the same prices just with the tag “indie” to hid the fact that they’re also crap and owned by some smaller portion of the big four!