RIAA LAWSUITS WON’T WORK (7-2003)

The recording industry is at it again. Despite the fact 
that the industry has filed, and in most cases won, several 
lawsuits against Internet song-swapping services, the free 
online music remains as easy to get as ever.

So what does the Recording Industry Association of America 
do next? That’s right, it threatens even more lawsuits – 
hundreds of them. This time, in addition to going after the 
song-swapping services, they are going after the individual 
computer users who may have song files on their hard drives 
that are accessible to others for downloading.

The RIAA is expecting to file several hundred lawsuits over 
the next couple of months against individual users who 
share their music online. Although it says it will start 
with the biggest offenders, it is likely to continue the 
lawsuits, perhaps even down to the occasional downloader.

As Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier 
Foundation, noted: the recording industry has now declared 
war on the American consumer, and its own customer base. 
“This latest effort really indicates the recording industry 
has lost touch with reality completely,” Lohmann told the 
Associated Press.

So what is the reality? 

It’s true that allowing other computer users to download 
copyrighted music from your computer is a violation of 
copyright law, even if no money is made from the 
transaction.

It’s also true that, partly because of music sharing 
online, the recording industry has suffered a decline in 
revenue in the past couple of years. At least that’s what 
they claim.

But it’s also true that the reason for this is that the 
recording industry has failed to keep pace with the 
consumer’s changing preferences about how they want their 
music delivered, and how they prefer to listen to it.

Music consumers are tired of having to pay outrageous 
prices to the record labels for a CD. Even at discount 
prices, a CD will cost anywhere between $13.00 and $17.00.

That CD costs the recording industry pennies to produce, 
and the royalties paid to the song writers are minuscule. 
And the artists, unless they are superstars, don’t make as 
much as one might think. Most of their income is derived 
from live concerts, not record sales.

In the last year or so, the recording industry has 
attempted a half-hearted effort to give music consumers 
what they want: the ability to download individual songs 
from their favorite artists from online sites. But most of 
these sites have so many restrictions attached that it’s 
not worth the price of admission.

For example, some of the sites offer streaming music only. 
Other sites allow you to download files to your computer, 
but you can’t transfer them to your own CD or to a portable 
player.

The RIAA claims that song swapping online is stealing. 
That’s certainly debatable. When you steal something from 
someone, the person you steal it from no longer possesses 
it. Sharing a song online does not take anything from the 
recording industry, because they still own the rights to 
the song and can still sell CDs containing it at their 
usual exorbitant prices.

What it does do is force the recording industry to yield to 
the demands of their own consumers. Music lovers no longer 
want to pay 15 bucks for a piece of plastic that contains a 
dozen songs selected by the studio, when all they really 
wanted was their favorite three or four.

Consumers want the ability to download whatever songs they 
wish, to make personal copies, and to be able to transfer 
the songs to disc or other portable devices so they can 
take their music with them. 

Free song-swapping services offer exactly what the consumer 
wants. When the recording industry offers the same thing, 
at very reasonable prices, most consumers will be happy to 
pay that price. Only then will consumers start to lose 
interest in the pirate sites.

The RIAA must develop a new paradigm for selling its music. 
It must offer exactly what the free services are offering, 
but because it must charge a fee, it must also offer a bit 
more.

It will happen eventually. When the recording industry 
finally realizes that filing hundreds of lawsuits will do 
nothing but cost millions of dollars, somebody in the 
industry will say, “Enough. Let’s give the consumers what 
they really want.”