It must be that time of year again. You know, when the Recording Industry Association of America, in an effort to stop file-sharing and peer-to-peer networks, decides to exact swift legal action against proclaimed “music pirates”—people who propagate the distribution of copyrighted music files, without the consent of the copyright holders. Only this time, the effects of their strong-arm lawsuits have ended up hitting a bit closer to home, slapping separate lawsuits on RPI students Jesse Jordan and Aaron Sherman.
By eliminating threats such as these two students, surely a major blow will have been dealt to the piracy and illegal file-swapping community, right? Subscribing to that theory, you may also be willing to believe that the Michigan Tech student being sued will be able to shell out the frivolously-requested $97 billion, or that the RIAA is trying to acquire this money as compensation for the royalty-starved artists—such as Christina Aguilera or Eminem—and not just acting as a money gatherer for the major record labels. After all, CD sales have been down as a result of all this MP3-sharing, so artists must be losing their fair share of the payments, right?
Those ideas, it seems, cannot hold a candle to the truth. The RIAA has stated itself that CD sales have been up over the past few years. They have also shown that they do not act in the artist’s best interest—not one cent of the $158 million received in settlements surrounding a case against www.mp3.com was reported as going directly to any artist on any label. They also have imposed a two percent tax on each CD distributed by their registered members.
So what does all this have to do with suing students, who are possibly either the most loyal or volatile of the music industry’s supporters. The RIAA’s scare tactics will not strike a blow to the piracy community, nor will their ridiculous compensation requests garner any credibility outside of the industry.
It will bring media attention to college networks—described as being “hijacked” and turned into “marketplaces for piracy” in the legal lawsuit documents—and pressure system administrators to shut down search systems such as Phynd. These actions that are unnecessary, and could request fully-legal technologies to be subject to corporate-favored law.
Show your disapproval of the RIAA and their procedures by visiting their website and personally blacklisting the protected record companies. Support artists by going to concerts and buying their CDs there. Support Phynd, Jesse Jordan, and Aaron Sherman in any way you see fit. After all, RPI’s network won’t be a piracy marketplace for long.
