RIAA Is The Monster Under Your Bed

Sorry, It Was Too Irresistable

That evil RIAA. First they throw lawsuits at us for simply downloading some songs from free services – seems harmless enough, considering that surveys have proved that more of people who download music illegally will inevitably go out to buy the CD of the artist than those who just “steal,” as they like to put it. Then they continue to come after us in meaner, less rationalistic ways, by suing little girls and the music industry’s mainstay: college students. Then comes the DRM, which led me to be convinced that anything abbreviated in relation to the RIAA is a mark of the devil. So the RIAA wants to protect their artists and bands, who I must say do deserve protection, but instead of pointing a finger at us (the consumers), they refused to turn the finger around. CD prices have become absurd (sure, $9.99 for a new CD is reasonable, but as high as $19.99 for ones from a couple years ago? C’mon), and the RIAA plays dumb as to why CD sales have gone done. Additionally, the quality of music has declined SIGNIFICANTLY. I think that all caps truly express my disgruntled sentiment.

Now the RIAA is coming with a new legislation that specifically targets internet radio stations for a type of music piracy. The proposed bill, aptly titled S.2644 (it has a ring to it, right?), is requesting that any internet station that cannot outfit their streaming devices on their websites with a certain technology will be “saddled with huge mandatory penalties.” Ha, saddled. (Read the proposed bill here). The technology must somehow prevent the user from capturing the MP3 being played to their computer, allowing the music to be a standalone entity and an impossible source for illegally acquiring music. The RIAA claims that this technology is available and must be implemented for the fact that they cannot just “turn a blind eye” to the piracy. While the internet services that they speak of – Pandora, Live365, Slacker (you know, the stations that I blog about/obsess over) – are not the ones who provide the services that can rip the music from their broadcasts, the RIAA states that they are holding them responsible anyways for the fact that they cannot just target the offender; they have to target the innocent source.

You have to wonder, is this fair? The RIAA is claiming that internet radio is providing the ability for users to steal MP3s, which are the basis for the internet radio stations, since they depend on MP3s for versatile programming. Sure, it is a bit unfair that the internet stations are becoming a source for illegal downloading, but they are the innocent bystander in this situation. Hackers and programmers who have devised downloadable programs to rip music from the live streams have made their products widely available, making them the offenders and the internet stations the innocents in the situation. Instead of targeting the offenders, the RIAA has gone right to the source. Because let’s face it: without the stations, there would be no programs to steal the stations’ music. I guess the RIAA learned their lesson after initially going after Kazaa and Limewire downloaders instead of the programs (cough, cough).

So then if the RIAA has merit, then why am I really pissed off about this whole thing? First, this is just a misguided attempt to hurt internet stations. The RIAA is once again playing the bad guy, and it’s doing all the right moves that a bad guy would do. Instead of holding a forum on the subject with people who actually listen to internet radio, or even conducting a survey of how many people illegally download music in this way, the RIAA is immediately assuming that everyone who uses the stations are getting free music from it. As a seldom listener of internet radio, I must say that I have never, ever used one of these services that allow me to rip music from the internet stations. I didn’t even know that they existed until now. Now the RIAA is making listeners like me aware of these programs, sparking incentive to actually want to use the programs. I never will, for the fact that my computer is already threaded with enough viruses to kill a small animal farm, but by making this public, some might get the idea to flock to these services. So thanks, RIAA, for doing that.

It will also provide a devastating blow the growing internet radio industry. Internet radio is so fresh and new that it has not really been accepted by music listeners yet. Sure, there are millions of people who use them, but that primarily consists of people from my generation and the MySpace one after us. The older folks really haven’t heard of this stuff, and by crushing internet radio now, the RIAA will make sure that our generation is devoid of such an outlet for music. But how will this happen, you ask? The technology to outfit a media player on an internet radio site is extremely expensive, and since internet radio (mostly) does not charge listeners a fee for the music that they stream, the sites depend mainly on advertising. In having to funnel those profits into this new form of technology, the internet radio stations will fold and will not be able to keep afloat. But this is all for the sake of preventing piracy, right? Instead of providing the stations with the technology for free (which they should do, since all they do is attack media outlets instead of helping them), they are going to force many stations into bankruptcy. That’s all to protect the artist, isn’t that right, RIAA? Kill the media outlet that gives people the entertainment that your entire existence is based on? There’s that good ol’ logic again.

Third and not lastly (but for the sake of your tired eyes it will be my last point), it will create more incentive to illegally download, for we want what we can’t have. In a class of mine, we just read St. Augustine’s Confessions¸ in which Augustine retells the story of stealing pears from a tree because he loved the fact that he could sin. He relished is free will and backlash against God’s power. Now I’m not sure how much internet radio has to do with going against God’s will, but users will be more inclined to commit piracy when more red tape is lain, just like how Augustine stole the pears even though he knew it was forbidden. That’s part of human nature. The RIAA hasn’t learned yet that people will only want to get their music illegally when more restrictions are placed on them. Why would someone want to pay to get music when their every move is being watched by the big bad RIAA?

The RIAA needs to lighten up. As long as there is music, there will always be a way for people to get it for free. And since the music industry isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, the RIAA had better learn to either start chasing the right bad guys or lighten up their legislation. No one has said anything about the ripping services that are available to download videos from YouTube and convert them so you can plop them onto your iPod. No one has talked about the fact that you can stick a tape into a radio receiver and tape your favorite songs off of the live broadcast. No one has mentioned that you can reroute the headphone jack on your computer and plug it into your microphone jack, so that anything being played through your speakers can be recorded through microphone recording programs. There are so many ways to get around DRM, and there’s nothing they can do about it. But if that means that they have to take down an entire burgeoning industry with their popularity, so be it, but they'll have to deal with millions of complaints. At least I’ll have my iPod to fall back on. Or are they going to sue me for owning one of those, too?