Congress and the RIAA
A recent article from CNet.com outlines potential efforts from Congress to legislate file swapping services, suggesting that the services may need to be completely banned (?!):
A California senator [Sen. Dianne Feinstein] has suggested that because file-sharing networks continue to house illegal files, they should be shut down. … Pointing to what she called a “rise in peer to peers” since the Grokster decision, Feinstein said current law is not effective enough to deter illegal file swapping and the government must enact stronger enforcement measures. “If we don’t stop it,” she said, “it’s going to destroy these intellectual property industries.”
It seems outrageous to me that legislators, lawyers, and RIAA suits can continue to quibble about an issue that most of them completely do not understand. There is undeniable truth to the assessment that the music industry has a legitimate gripe about consumers illegally acquiring music through file swapping services. However, what they don’t seem to realize is that throwing laws and lawsuits at the problem does nothing to help their cause. Consider the following points:
- Imagine that a retail store has caught a 13 year old child attempting to steal hundreds of dollars worth of goods. A typical response might be to call the police, re-acquire the stolen property, and enforce proper disciplinary action on the offending child. Nobody would suggest that the store sue the child for monetary damages thousands of times greater than the actual value of the stolen goods. Yet this is essentially what the RIAA is doing. It doesn’t seem to me like very good publicity or an effective way to establish a mutually beneficial relationship with its customers.
- Contrary to what the RIAA bigwigs and many of the legislators and lawyers seem to be saying, file swapping services have very legitimate and wholly legal uses. The fact that they are used for illegal activity is unfortunate, but certainly not a valid reason to shut them down. I’m pretty certain that many other legitimate internet services have been used for illegal activities. I’m purely speculating here, but perhaps instant message services or email services have been used for terrorist communications? or maybe child pornography has been spread through online photo publishing services? or how about viruses being spread through the very infrastructure that defines the internet? I haven’t heard any cries to shut these services down yet.
- Perhaps even more ignorant of the RIAA is that the legitimate legal uses of these file swapping services can and do directly benefit the music industry. Many, many, many independent and lesser-known artists embrace file sharing services as a means to spread their music and freely distribute and advertise their content. Does the RIAA even realize this? or do they just not care about these artists because they are not a significant contribution to their bottom line?
The music industry has a potentially very profitable music distribution paradigm sitting right in front of them. They have already made a step in the right direction unveiling services such as Napster 2.0 and Apple’s iTunes. However, I am sure that they can exploit this model further to make file-swapping services a true benefit to their business. Rather than wasting money on lawsuits, lawyers, and legislation that ultimately stifles innovation, they should be investing this money directly into research efforts to encourage innovation in this area. You can’t eradicate the pirates and the copyright infringers; they will always find a way to live on. Instead, give people a reason to want to buy music through legitimate means.
