14 DAY TRIAL // OK, so I promise I will try and quote as little as possible from the most recent RIAA release. "Again RIAA, aren't they bored yet?" might you ask just for me to say they're not bored at all but seemingly more and more interested in topping with honey the crap they're bathing in.
The President and the CEO of RIAA, namely Cary Sherman and Mitch Bainwol have made up some explanation story and released it to the press; not an "I'm sorry"-thing, but rather some sort of very weird disclaimer in which the two RIAA leaders try to explain why are they suing kids, families without computers, crippled people and recently, zounds of students.
They're not abusing, they're educating. As well as they are not looking after heaps of money to fill their pockets - they're showing people how cool is to respect intellectual property. They do not care that sharing for free is one thing and selling illegal music is a different thing - they'll sue your a** and claim for $500K or the like because you shared some crappy MP3 files with your girlfriend. But they are so sorry when you force them to do so... I guess we have all broke their heart so many times a day that we should be ashamed of ourselves. Poor guys at RIAA!
They (RIAA) speak in tears about how much people suffer when an MP3 is shared in the P2P system. "[...]the impact from this activity, including billions of dollars in lost revenue, millions of dollars in lost taxes, thousands of lost jobs [...]" - see how you bring Earth's industry and civilization to ground level? Now, everything is spoken in generic terms: I have not seen any specific complaints from artists neither reports as how their fortunes decreased as I have shared one MP3 file.
And this is because RIAA does not give a s**t about them; they're concerned about themselves and their pockets only and the money they get from "settlements" does not go to the artists but to themselves again. As well as these settlements that are more like a semi-legal form of intimidation... first they (RIAA) come and ask for $600,000 and they "kindly" offer you a settlement for the "generous" sum of $4,000. You get scared and pay - RIAA will grow fatter with your money and Shakira won't see a dime. That's more or less how it works...
Another pile of crap comes from RIAA and their messianic quest for "education" of the music lovers: RIAA does not sue students to get as much of their money as possible for the sharing thing - they want to educate! Read this quote and see the educational thing: "This is a teachable moment - an opportunity to educate these particular students about the importance of music in their lives and the importance of respecting and valuing music as intellectual property." So, you almost fell off your chairs, haven't you? So did I when I first read such a thing... see how concerned are the RIAA about the students' education? See, see?
Next comes a tear-dropping cry of despair, mourning for the disappearing of the small record-stores in or near student camps: "Now, finding a record store still in business anywhere near a campus is a difficult assignment at best. It's not just the loss of current sales that concerns us, but the habits formed in college that will stay with these students for a lifetime." Not a word about the major 4 selling their music for hyper-discount prices to stores like Walmart and BestBuy which have themselves liquidated the small vendors... but this is another story.
Well, dear "fellow criminals", there are so many other stories RIAA is more or less skillfully avoiding but this, again is a completely different story. All in all, a story whose end looks like it's going to be rather late, very late, until some nervous guy puts up a lawsuit fight against RIAA and wins; because yes, there are ways of winning and proving them (RIAA) wrong once and for all. Or at least making them finally understand that what they are after is simply impossible to attain.
Have a good night sleep, Mr. Bainwol (sorry for adding an "R" in the previous articles, it won't happen again, I promise). Hope you get a good night rest, tomorrow some poor children and some crippled people are waiting for you to educate them. Ah, and it's possible we get some dead guy downloading some songs so RIAA can exercise a bit on such a case...
NOTE: Neither the Softpedia editor nor Softpedia.com encourage piracy, nor do they advocate for illegal activities.
