End of RIAA Lawsuits (For a week at least)

Today there was some surprising news revealed by the RIAA. The RIAA has been involved for a long time in a public relations disaster, suing people that pirate and share the music of their artists. Protecting copyright in not necessarily a bad thing, but the RIAA really botched the whole process. From suing dead people to 10 year olds, to people who didnt even own a computer, they really have done a bad job. Today they announced that they would (finally) stop prosocuting individual file-sharers. At first when I saw the headlines, I expected (foolishly) an accompanying announcement about a rollout of a new, relevant, online store to purchase music at a reasonable price, or otherwise rearrange its business model to join the 21st century. Nope.

Instead what they are doing is outsourcing the bullying to the ISP. Not exactly the huge step forward that I was hoping for. But, at least it is change. And with a system as flawed as the RIAA, any change is good change. One of the best comments I've read about the change is included here:

Funny. Nowhere in the article did I see the RIAA:

1) Promoting better artists to make CDs with more than one good song
2) Trimming production costs to lower music prices
3) Increasing support for music format options (OGGs, AACs, etc...)
4) Increasing music licensing options (transferal from person to person, etc...)
5) Improved CD and online music libraries
6) Enforcing music source (i.e. iTunes) and music player (i.e. Zune) interoperability

I'm just sayin'... - amanojaku(DailyTech)

For those interested in finding out more about the in's and outs of the RIAA's new stance, see the excellent post here at torrentfreak.

And one more awesome quote to finish things off:

RIAA is like the doctor in medical dramas who just won't stop trying to
revive the patient and eventualy has to be pulled off the corpse. - DarthWader(Lifehacker)


Merry Christmas everyone!

Note:Image above courtesy of Engadget