An open letter to the RIAA

Dear RIAA,

As the watchdog for the so-called "recording industry," I expect you to preserve and protect the viability and future growth of the recording industry. In fact, I don't even have a problem with you doing that. But sad as it as, your tactics have come under attack by those on both sides of the "piracy" fence imploring you to find something better to do with your time. Isn't it time you listen to your critics and realize that your tactics are making you one of the most hated organizations in the world?

Now, I'm sure you've heard this before and you have actually come to expect a technology pundit to criticize you for being the bully that will eventually get punched in the nose. In fact, I'm sure some of you will try to laugh this letter off as another naive attempt to bring an end to your scare tactics. But what you may not realize is you can only bully for so long and you can only push us as long as we want you to. Because eventually, my friends, we will push back--harder.

Is it about the money, RIAA? Are you and your keepers that greedy that you can't stand the thought of a 12-year old girl downloading a few songs from a peer-to-peer network? Is the thought of such an act so disdainful that you must run to your high-powered lawyers and find a way to put little Jenny in jail?

If so, let me ask you why you haven't you gone after the pirates in Asia and abroad that have horded millions of dollars from illegal piracy? Is it because they run gunships through the sea and they're much harder to attack? Are you really going after the lowest hanging fruit? Are we, American citizens, just fruit to you?

I would like to know why you have decided to attack 80-year-old women and 12-year-old kids. I want to know why you sue single mothers and bully someone who has downloaded 50 songs when you know there are organizations pirating thousands of songs. More than anything, I want to know why you want to intimidate people? Do you think it will work?

I think it's time you change your tactics. Did you know that amid your lawsuits, peer-to-peer downloading and torrent downloads have doubled since the lawsuits began? Did you know that although the law clearly states we shouldn't be pirating music, there's little teeth behind a law if millions do it? Much like the days of prohibition, you're fighting a battle you can't win. It's time you give it up.

So what should you do? Well, first off, stop trying to intimidate us--it doesn't work. We're millions, and if the need should arise, we can stand up and fight against your high-powered lawyers with our own and put an end to this debacle. Your industry may have the ear of Congresspeople now, but rest assured, our votes will ring louder than your lobbying if you take this too far.

Go after the real pirates and leave us alone. It's common knowledge that the more you fight us, the more we'll fight back. If you want us to stop pirating music, then stop making it so easy. Allow us to download songs for free and I'll guarantee you something will happen that you never would expect: your slumping revenues will actually rise! Believe it or not, we don't mind paying the artists for what they've created as long as we're not being overcharged for the same material we can have elsewhere at a lower price.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this, RIAA. You may not agree with some of the points outlined in this letter and I can appreciate that. But if you do not heed my warnings and find a new tactic for self-preservation, your demise will be met with a skull and bones.

[ihateelectronics]

Absolutely Correct

This is exactly the type clear common sense thinking that is lacking from major corporations and govt's due to greed, ignorance, and blatent stupidity. I wish somebody would have commented on another type of email that came up on Torrentfreak.com that was sent to the CRIA in Canada. Hopefully people will begin to see the light and realize that things have got to change and also benefit the customer or pirating will grow. As a consumer we ill get what we want eventually whether they like it or not.

[mr_l_k]

new emi owners comment

the sunday telegraph carried an interesting article on its front page of the business section from the new owners of emi: riaa take note...

?rather than embracing digitalisation and the opportunities it brings for promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, the industry has stuck its head in the sand?.

i remember being at sony music europe in 95 and saying the same thing - they didnt listen then and they are still not listening to the inevitable..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/10/08/cnemi108.xml

[blackjac5000]

An open letter to Don Reisinger

I would like to know why you believe that pursuing and prosecuting someone for breaking the law is "bullying." I would like to know why you are completely ignorant of the concept of "jurisdictions," which would explain why a US-based organization isn't pursuing criminals in Asia. I would like to know why you are so hellbent on depriving people who work in the last profitable industry in this nation, one that has zero job security at that, of their livelihood. I would like to know that why the logic used by the terrorist ("Give me what I want, or I won't stop hurting you and yours") is perfectly acceptable when justifying your refusal to pay for something you don't own.

I did not write a book and three screenplays, with one apiece more in the works, so some no-talent self-righteous Napsterite can take it without compensation for my months upon months of converting the contents of my head into something worth United States dollars. "Allow you to download for free?" This nation may legalize drugs, it may legalize polygamy, but it sure as hell won't legalize theft without being five years brain-dead first. I suggest you read the KW Jeter novel "Noir" and learn what he considers to be the hardware solution to intellectual property theft before you even think of stealing one of my works.

[RacerX7]

Wow! Napster and Terrorist! Oh my!!

Nice to see the "Terrorist" analogy is still gaining steam...I hope one day it will overtake the "Hitler" analogy, but that's going to be tough to topple. I don't think either of those analogies can ever be used enough...

That said, I'd be interested to see what your MP3 collection looks like. That, however, will need to remain a mystery and I digress...conscientia mille testes.

But the bottom line is that many people, myself included, believe that the music industry has failed to keep up with a viable business model. They have substituted lawsuits for innovation. Never a good business plan.

And really...who the hell downloads books from napster? Regardless, if you use crappy analogies like that terrorist one in your book, Napster may be your only viable option...

[TiVoJoe]

It's OK to steal

It?s OK to lie because everyone else lies. Ask Bill Clinton. It?s OK to speed because they can?t stop us all. It?s OK to steal. Everyone else is doing it. Right? That?s what you mean when you say ?We?re millions?. Is it OK because it?s just ?a few songs?? So I could steal just a few CD players? Is it OK because no one is stealing to make money? So what if I gave away the CD players I stole? No. It?s OK because in the society we live in there is no right or wrong. There are only shades of gray. There is no personal accountability. You?re only wrong if you get caught. And then only if you can?t get out of it by lying.
?Believe it or not, we don't mind paying the artists for what they've created as long as we're not being overcharged for the same material we can have elsewhere at a lower price.? So if BestBuy is charging too much for those CD players I can steal them, right?
I speed. If I get caught I don?t whine and cry about all the others that were speeding. I pay the ticket. I don?t steal because 1) It?s wrong and 2) I can?t afford the price of getting caught. So if reason 1 is not good enough to keep people from stealing, and obviously it isn?t, then we need reason 2.

[rdupuy11]

No he means buy a clue

You are into the mob arguement 'hang the criminals' and what the author is challenging you to do, is remember that the millions write the laws, not the few.

The absolutely most successful book in my field, is given away for free on the internet. Why would the book, that is given away, also have the most sales of hard copy?

They understand the new model of business. Get wide distribution, then profit from the popularity.

In the old world, you bought a book, to read it. In the new world, everyone has access to BILLIONS of pages of text to read on the internet. Reading is free, it will be, from now on.

Get wide popularity, people buy the hard copy, to show its an important work. It have as a tangible copy of a work important to them. As a collectors item. To read the hard copy even. But its, a different model.

Stealing is wrong. But that doesn't mean this business model, isn't flawed. It's flawed. RIAA isn't about making wrong into right. They are about protecting income for artists.

What they need to know, is, they are failing at that. And if they could understand how the world works now, they could succeed at that.

Nothing more, nothing less.

[Benf]

I Think your wrong.

We are a "Natiom of Sheep" and for the most part we will go in the direction our leaders or the big money want us to go, sure, we may complain a bit but we will soon quiet down and go where they want us to, like the IRS and state tax agencies, they control us by intimidation, the vast majority of us are so concerned about the conciquences of not paying or cheating on out taxes that we dont do it, save a few and they generaly get caught sooner or later. The RIAA and MPAA are controlling us the same way, I no longer download music, I dont want to be sued, the RIAA has won, downloading music just isnt worth the risk and like it or not, it is against the law, we are the most litigation prone sociaty on the planet thanks to the lawyers and rediculous judgements are quite commonplace and not supprising in the least.

[88888Tim]

Nobel letter, but flawed

Here's a rough timeline in text form: starting in 1996 MP3s->College Networks->Napster->Kazaa etc.->record industry pants caught way down without even a whisper of a business model for selling .mp3's-> Enter agressive lawsuits to maintain marketshare -> roll out itunes, rhapsody, etc. -> Lawsuits continue but target everyperson, not big pirates.

If anyone is asking why they (RIAA) are targeting a youth who only downloaded a couple of songs <25? Then you're not getting it, if they were only going after the 'big pirates' then we as joe schmo and Susie Teenager would have nothing to fear. We wouldn't sweat the 15-20 downloads because the logic would be that we were under the radar. Except, the RIAA isn't targeting these actual 'pirates' but the Joe Schmo's and Susie Teenagers as a tactic to prevent the casual listener from not paying them through their approved purchasing methods. Quite the effective maneuver. If they have no guilt in winning a case of ~$250k from a single mother, than the thinking (that they want you to have) is "Well then they wouldn't even think twice about doing that to me."

Even the simplest/most obvious answer can be the right one.

The lawsuits are all about maintaining a market, by keeping the sheep in line, they can continue to get paid.

[godlyfrog]

Not so flawed

To start, you're right about why they're targeting who they're targeting, but their methods are incorrect. The members of the RIAA needs to take three more steps before threatening a lawsuit.

First, they need to set up an alternate, cost-effective method to get the music they want. It does them no good to sue a consumer for downloading their product when they don't offer that product in the form their consumer wants it. Make no mistake, the people they're suing are consumers, not pirates. The consumer is downloading DRM-free music because that's what they want. They don't want to buy a device to download music with DRM specifically designed for the site they're downloading it from to the exclusion of all others. No one in the RIAA would purchase a pair of pants that the selling company says they can only wear on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and they shouldn't expect their customer to buy music they can only play on two computers or by burning it to a CD.

Second, they should then offer customers a one-time-only, 2 month offer to access that site and purchase the songs that they downloaded illegally, then stop sharing their songs (although if they were smart, they'd make use of P2P to legally distribute music that's been purchased).

Third, after the 2 month reprieve, they once again start tracking downloads. This time, if they find someone, they send them a letter charging them a $100 service charge for locating them, and their site price for each song detected, unless the person can provide proof of purchase for the music. The consumer would then be required to stop sharing music at this point and pay the bill.

If the consumer ignores the letter, and doesn't make arrangements to pay for it or doesn't stop sharing, the RIAA then continues with the lawsuit. At this point, no one can say that they weren't warned and weren't given a fair chance to get the music in a legal format. Their current method of "lawsuit at first contact with settlement option in the thousands of dollars" is what leaves a horrid taste in everyone's mouth. I certainly don't have several thousands of dollars lying around to settle with the RIAA, so I haven't downloaded music in years, but likewise, I haven't purchased a CD from an RIAA member company in several years. In my case, not only have they not made any money off of me, but because I don't actively seek out their product, they don't even have me in their mind share, so if they ever do pull their heads out of their favorite orifice, they will now have to spend more money to get me back. If the RIAA understood this, they would allow illegal file-sharing until they had an equivalent product, then try to ease society back into buying from them again. The above method may seem very light-handed, but that's the only way they're going to get back the consumers that they've offended by lawsuits.

[starcannon]

The RIAA is a dinosaur

These are just the death throws of an obsolete organization.
There isn't much hope for the RIAA, computer technology is improving at such a rate that the carrot that big music has been able to dangle in front of artists is shrinking, and at some point will disappear entirely.
It won't be long before the music you listen to has been produced in the artists own dwelling on equipment the artist owns, it no longer takes millions of dollars worth of equipment to produce professional music, its down into the < $10k range, and as time goes by it will likely fall below $5k.
RIAA is a boogey man who will join his brethren under your bed.

[starcannon]

I had a bit more to say,

His (Don Reisinger) logic is flawed, but in the end his letter points at the reality of the situation.
The music industry as we knew it is dead, all things die, its a natural thing, nothing lives forever.
Music isn't dead, just the way it was marketed, musicians will have to go back to the way things were before big music conglomerates could afford to pay them insane amounts of money, /shrug oh well, adapt or join the dinosaurs, theres no alternative, death throws are violent and ugly but eventually they stop.
Professional Musicians everywhere better be planning ahead, Sugar Daddy RIAA won't last much longer; in fact, I think I see rigor mortis setting in already, those legs won't kick forever.

[partytildawn-20159620461052270]

Follow the money

What is really interesting is to sit down and piece together who actually is represented by and operates the RIAA. We're told about these "hundreds" of labels across the music industry that the RIAA represents. This is actually a lie. Almost every member of the RIAA are really sub-labels of each of the giants such as Sony but they list each and every sub-label as an independent company deceiving the public and the courts into believing they represent the entire industry which they do not. RIAA is a goon squad. Are you even aware that every single blank CDR you buy for use on your company has about $1 of its price go to the RIAA as a gift from Congress eventhough you aren't necessarily using it to record music? Yup, Congress gave them this carrot a few years back because the RIAA claimed that we were all illegally copying music onto CDR's and they wanted a cut. Who is to blame for the RIAA problem? We all are for not demanding Congress put the RIAA in its place and not boycotting RIAA member labels.

[Damned_Liberal]

Intellectual Property or Intellectual Pop-cockery?

why doesn't anyone take on the strip mining of our public domain? a mall prevents political discussion when the town square begged it to make a trip into town complete. you can't Xerox a book page at the library because you'll be 'violating' copyright. and on it goes, now down to the very music in your head, how it got there, etc. who but Orwell believed the Thought Police would be suing folks for having music by The Police in their brains?

[rdupuy11]

Good article, getting the usual flawed reactions

blackjac5000 thinks that people are out to steal his works. I'm not out to steal it. And I'm not out to buy it. I wouldn't read your works, if it was a gift, I'd place it in the trash.

Judging by what you are trying to pass off as an intelligent response, I have better things to do with my time.

You completely failed to get it... your mob mentality of 'hang the criminals'..doesn't work. While your friends in the RIAA are pursuing that strategy, illegal downloads have doubled.

What needs to happen, is a new model. Wide distribution. Content is everywhere. People still buy books, but they don't buy them to read them. They buy books they've ALREADY READ.

It's a world that you don't know, and maybe you are too old to ever understand or take part in. But in a world saturated with media, you buy the hard copy as a kind of trophy to your achievement. To place on your coffee table and suggest to house guests, here is a book I've already read...as opposed to a book I intend to read.

Give the book away. Make money from wide distribution and popularity.

Keep up your old tactics for as long as they work, but as the author of the c-net article is pointing out, its an old model that is dying and what you are seeing here, are last desperate attempts to keep it afloat. Like it or not, it won't stay afloat. It's a new world, and the old one will die.

Learn to make money in the new model, or go down with the ship. Your choice.

[docwobbles01]

An artist's POV

As a professional musician of over 30 years, I can tell you that while some of us are money-grubbing capitalists, many of us also have day jobs and make music only because we enjoy doing it. It's idiotic to expect to make CD sales our sole source of income, and the entire concept of "intellectual property" turns my stomach sour. Music should be free to exchange in any format! If a musician wants to be paid for his or her music, then he or she should go on tour and take a percentage of ticket sales -- as a great many of us -- the better musicians, anyway -- do.

[bwvla]

Bingo ! ! !

I think Prince got it right when he gave away his last album in the UK and then followed up with a dozen concerts. All of his concerts sold out and he made a fortune. The scavengers in the recording business who normally get 90 something percent were cut out of the picture.

[Renegade Knight]

The Real Battle isn't Even About Piracy...

The real battle is straight out of the pages of every Marketing 101 colleget text book.

To succede in business find a need and fill it. MP3 filled a need. The only place to get MP3's in the early days were Napster and other P2P networks.

The RIAA doesn't fill any needs. Amazon MP3, iTunes etc. do. It's all on the pages of the dusty Marketing book that most of the execs probably sold back to the bookstore when they were students...

[Global Grind]

Stop the Bullies

We're glad people are fighting back and not allowing the RIAA to bully us!

---
Check out more on this story at http://www.globalgrind.com

[cchenoweth6]

Stole my Article!

Hey, I wrote this a few days before you posted it!

;-)

[wil_w_s]

Freedom of choice...

I would pay for music if it were mine. What do I mean? Well, say you buy a CD. You can rip it and use it in your mp3 player edit it and use it as a ring tone, play it on your car CD player and any number of other things that, 'm sure if the RIAA could stop that and get money for each of those uses, they would. I simply don't want to pay for songs from the companies that DRM them up so that you can only listen to them on a computer or only burn them a certain number of times or my favorite SCAM of all, you buy the music and it is only good as long as you maintain a subscription to their service. I think that is bull. I recently found out that you can pay for MP3's on Amazon and there is no DRM. Guess who is getting my business because I too don't want to get sued by the RIAA for downloading songs that is just ridiculous.

[DK]

Go steal a chair -- sitting should be free

They say a fish rots from the head down. Well, since we live in a country where the head lies on a daily basis, where the sycaphants and cronies of the head get rich from other people's misery, where fraud and profiteering have become the norm, of course it's okay to steal music. Intellectual property can't be real. Hell, you can't see it and you can't touch it. It's imaginary. Of course, that ignores the fact that all creative endeavor comes from the imagination. That artists -- not just musicians but writers and directors and actors and choreographers -- struggle for years to get to a place where they can make a living from their art. Most never do. A small minority get rich. But what they all have in common is that they make something from nothing. That's why it's called creating. And then someone who've never created anything rationalize that it's okay to steal the artist's work. Why? Because it's easy. Technology is to blame. Well, next time you see a blind begger with a tin cup full of dimes, be sure to grab it. You'll be gone before he can find his white cane. And you'll be in good company -- if you consider that liars and profiteers are worthy of you.

[StickMaker]

Way too steep.

Talk about going overboard. I'll NEVER buy another record/tape nor CD.

[TechieTrekkie]

Stop Cheating!

I buy a lot of music. I pay for my music. I should pay for my music. Someone put a lot of time, effort, and money into making the music, and they deserve a little something for their work. Now, I certainly think that the current situation could use a little revising, but I do not think that artists should give their music away for free. Artists make music to make a living, and it is cheating to steal music that they made. Take an artist, for example. Not a music artist, but one that draws and paints beautiful, complex pictures. Do you people say that it would be right for someone to take that picture, make thousands of high-quality copies of it, and give it away on the street? No. If that happened, no one would want to pay the artist for their work, since they could get it for free. You say that artists should give away downloads, and make money off of their concerts? Well, let me take you back to my artist example. If you could get a high-quality copy of a picture that an artist made for free, and take it home, and spend less than a hundred dollars to get it framed, and put on your wall, (buy music, and blast it loudly) then why would you want to go and pay an artist $1000, or so for a framed copy of their work (go to a live show by that artist)? I think that the people that have been commenting on here need to stop thinking only about themselves and how they can get everything that they want for free, and think about how the artists would feel. Put yourselves in their place, people! How would you feel if you worked several months to a year to make a CD, and then no one paid you a red cent for it? It costs a lot of money for an artist to make a good-quality CD. I spend most of my time that I am on the Internet, keeping track of the prices on electronics. It is NOT cheap to but the necessary equipment to make a CD, people, and those artists do not have another job, so they are not making any money while they are making the CD, only losing large amounts of it, unless they are a very popular artist, who is selling thousands of copies of their songs per day. And, one more thing that I would like to point out. You might object to my comment by stating that I am right, those artists are selling thousands of their songs every day. Well, lets think about that for a moment. Lets say they sell 5000 songs per day. That is about $5000 per day. There are about five people per band, probably anywhere from 10-50 people on the sound crew, depending on how good you want it to be. They have to pay every single one of those people at lease 8-10 dollars per hour. They have to buy equipment. They have to pay ridiculously large electric bills. They have to pay to keep their Website up. They have to pay for ads to their website, publicity for their CD, publicity for their band, they have to put millions of blank CDs, etc. when they finish the album, they probably have o produce somewhere around 50-100 thousand CDs per day before they put them into production. A good CD making machine will make maybe 20-30 CDs at once. That means that they will have to have a lot of CD-making machines to make the CDs. They also have to have a rather large building to keep all of this in. I could go on and on, but I think you get my point. Unless those artists sell their music in high quantities once they are out, they are not going to be making as much money as you think. Now, I do not know much about the RIAA, but, from what I have heard, they are a bunch of greedy rats. The purpose of the RIAA is a noble one, but the people in control of it are not in the least noble. I would say that some people need to take control of the RIAA that are really concerned about artists being cheated out of their money, and not by how many millions they can increase their paycheck by.

[DravenStele]

Who are you paying?

Your argument would hold weight if the money consumers pay for CDs were actually going to the artists. Unfortunately, only about 1 in 100 (or 1000) of artists actually get any substantial money from their music. See, the problem is that the RIAA is actually a puppet organization that is keeping the bloated studios in business. Once "artists" realize that they can make their music and make it available through home studio kits on the computer AND use viral videos to publish it, the RIAA and the studios will fade into non-existence. So, you keep right on paying them studios and their high priced lawyers. The rest of us will move into the 21st century.

[tptagth]

unequal sentencing?

from online ED FOSTER'S GRIPELOG, "The comparisons between two news stories last week struck me as rather
telling. You probably saw some of the coverage about a jury decision
ordering a Minnesota woman to pay $220,000 for infringing copyright on
24 songs. But you may have missed the FTC's announcement (see
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/10/motorspyware.shtm) of its successful
action against a spyware outfit that's going to cost the offenders
$330,000 ... of the $3,595,925 in illicit revenue they earned from
their
scam. Gee, what message does that send?"