The Pirate Review - Why and How to Shut Down the RIAA

The only way to stop bullies is by kicking their butts.

On Tuesday, September 9, 2003, legal counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America settled with the mother of Brianna LaHara, a pre-teen from New York City who had downloaded music from the Internet. Brianna honestly believed she had done nothing wrong, but the monolithic RIAA claimed otherwise—to the tune of $2,000. Now a family which is barely scraping by gets to pony up to a multimillion-dollar corporation, all because their daughter was listening to music online.

Maybe you don't understand what all the fuss is about. Perhaps you've never downloaded an MP3 file, and you think those evil people who download music deserve to be sued. But don't be too sure this doesn't affect you. After all, if you've ever engaged in peer-to-peer file sharing, the RIAA wants to sue you, too. Have you ever loaned an album you own to a friend so he or she could listen to it? What about making a mix tape of several different songs and giving it to someone? Have you ever made a copy of an album on cassette so you could listen to it in the car? You might think all these activities are legal under fair use laws, and you'd be right, but they're also examples of the kind of activity the RIAA wants to litigate against. The only difference between these traditionally innocuous activities and MP3 file sharing is the use of up-to-date technology to do the sharing.

The RIAA is terribly afraid of MP3 sharing—and it's hard to understand why. The common justification is that people will never pay for an album if they can download MP3s for free. The trouble is, that's just not true. If I find a musician whose work I really like, I'm going to support him or her by buying albums; if I don't like something, I delete it. In the last few years I've purchased music from Wendy Rule, Vicki Genfan, Great Big Sea, Yankee Celtic Consort, Eva Cassidy, the Harvard Krokodiloes, The Third Planet, and numerous other groups whose existence would be completely unknown to me if it weren't for MP3 downloads.

And perhaps that is closer to where the true problem lies. If the average Joe gets to choose his own music preferences without being dictated to by the RIAA, then the RIAA doesn't have much power. It can't claim that it made a particular artist into a star—the fans did that—and it therefore can't justify taking the lion's share of gross album receipts. It can't compel independent record labels to become RIAA members, because those labels will do just fine if they have good-quality music, MP3s available for customers to download, and no RIAA support. In essence, if MP3 file sharing continues unabated, the RIAA will not lose profits as much as it will lose industry clout.

Up to this point I've held my peace. I was quiet when the RIAA threw a temper tantrum and shut down Napster. I didn't fuss when they hamstrung Audiogalaxy and started gunning for KaZaA and Morpheus. I even kept mum when RIAA-affiliated labels began using copy protection on their new CD releases—which at best refused to work on CD-ROM drives, and at worst did irreparable damage to the firmware. But when RIAA president Cary Sherman and his cronies started calling out the hounds on 12-year-old girls living in the projects of New York City, they officially and irrevocably crossed the line of basic decency.

They want to hang onto their monopoly with both hands, even when it hurts the bottom line for them to do so. They fear new file-sharing technology so much that my generation openly mocks them as techno-Luddites. They prefer to call their loyal customers thieves and pirates, rather than admit that peer-to-peer file sharing is the fastest, least expensive way of promoting new music. And that's fine; it's their call. But I for one won't put up with it.

I love music. In the past I've used considerable amounts of discretionary income to purchase literally hundreds of CDs for my music collection. There's no point in shooting myself in the foot by refusing to buy CDs until the RIAA comes to its senses—because I doubt that's going to happen any time soon. Instead, from now on, I will purchase albums only from artists not affiliated with the RIAA. They have made this remarkably simple to do, thanks to an extensive list of members on the RIAA Web site (http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp).

I don't have any moral dilemmas with temporarily downloading files from a P2P network, because I'm not going to keep them forever; it's strictly a try-before-you-buy situation. When I find a song I like, written by an artist who sells his or her own albums or promotes them through a non-RIAA distributor such as CD Baby, I buy the album. If I don't like the song, I delete the file—no harm done.

When it comes to file sharing, the RIAA has two choices: adapt or die. But the RIAA is a corporate dinosaur—small-brained, vicious, dangerous, and fatally incapable of adapting to a new climate. Unlike the T. rex, it thinks it can stop progress by suing everyone who refuses to play its game. But each time it brings its collective weight to bear against individual file sharers—every time it attempts to threaten or sue potential customers—the RIAA broadcasts to more and more people that it is engaging in corporate bullying. I know how to handle bullies. They can't be ignored, and they can't be placated—they have to be beaten.

Until such time as the RIAA finally pulls its head out, stops looking for scapegoats to blame, and realizes that file sharing is not a threat to the music industry, it will not get a single penny of my money. I'm certain I won't be alone. Perhaps the RIAA can make a public example of a few preteen girls, but it can't sue everyone. We have the advantages of greater numbers, better technology, and an understanding of our rights as consumers—and unlike the RIAA, we're adaptable.

Good luck, Mr. Sherman. You'll need it.