Silly me, I was thinking there was nothing to post at the moment, but I forgot I was going to type up a rant on the RIAA

Hm, now theres nothing to type. Bah

The RIAA, has gotten angry about music piracy. Despite the fact the cost of CD's has actually inflated compared to the cost it takes to produce them, they still cost the same amount as records do, despite the fact records cost a lot more money to create. Despite the fact music piracy probably helps sales, they still do not like the idea of anyone being able to get music without paying. Some people there have compared it to "Walking into a store and stealing their CD's." But its not - if you steal the CD's from a store, that store does not have the CD's to sell. This is not the case with music piracy. Music piracy is basically the copying of data - the original owners still have it, others just have copies of it.

Instead of solving their problems by improvising, such as developing a P2P service like that themselves, they are simply trying to beat music piraters into the ground. Which is not going to work. The tactics they are working on are basically scare tactics - they are going around, making sure everyone knows that they are currently arresting and fining people for sharing music. In reality, though, while they go after an occasional person, for the most part they are going after the large sharers. And even then, in many situations they are unsuccessfull. Often a person will just be able to claim that they never downloaded (x) file, and that someone must have been spoofing their IP. Depending on how much data the ISP is willing to give them, they might be able to get you, and they might not. But chances are, out of the millions of people using p2p networks, they are not going to get you. If you are uploading hundreds of songs to dozens of people every hour, you have a higher chance of being caught. But if you only download the occasional song, and are only sharing a couple hundred files, you are probably safe. Not neccessarily, but your chances of being caught are slim.

But the RIAA, and other anti-piracy organizations, are not relying on catching everyone... they are esentially using intimidation tactics. They are catching a small quantity of people (compared to the large amounts using p2p programs), and making sure those people are publicized... that everyone knows those people were caught, and they were going after people. They are making sure it gets into the newspapers, phrased just vaguely enough that some people think having the p2p program itself is illegal. What the RIAA is doing is trying to scare you into not sharing, because without anyone sharing, p2p networks would be worthless. If the RIAA had less money, what they are doing would be called "terrorism".

"The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons." from dictionary.com

Except they wouldnt be using terrorism anyways, as the USA government has attempted to twist the word into meaning enemy of the United States, with an effort to rally people, so they would forget about what happened during bush's administration (IE: twin tower attacks) and instead focus on outside forces, that bush was 'acting' to conquer. But thats a rant for another day.

The RIAA, and other piracy organizations, are also sharing copyrighted files themselves. Under other circumstances, this might fall into "entrapment", which is illegal, however, under these circumstances, it doesnt, as the RIAA has plenty of money to handle any sort of court case.

"To lure into performing a previously or otherwise uncontemplated illegal act" from dictionary.com

Currently, anti-piracy organizations are attempting to get a law/bill passed, making it a FELONY to share or download even a SINGLE copyrighted file. In other words, you get an as bad, maybe even worse, sentence for downloading one song than you would for armed robbery.

So what can you do to keep the anti-piracy organizations from winning? Dont let their tactics get to you. Get better versions of your p2p software, which disguises your IP (such as kazaa lite, instead of normal kazaa), and keep sharing.

They are only winning while you are afraid - so dont let them get to you. Share. Download. Win.


Wow, that was a long rant. More of an essay, really... guess there WAS something to type o_0. It was over 700 words, lol.

Now im gonna go do something else... that took like 10 minutes to type, lol