The Record Industry Association of America’s recent decision to intimidate 43 N.C. State students with threats of lawsuits is the latest move in the music industry’s war against their own consumers. The RIAA has a long history of bullying consumers, but this latest offensive aimed specifically against college students is particularly unconscionable.
The tactics of the RIAA are blatantly exploitative — they are offering these 43 students settlement offers, knowing that few college students can afford to wage an expensive court battle. The RIAA is simply trying to intimidate people who, due to a lack of financial resources, have no opportunity to defend themselves.
While the RIAA was busy launching this fifth wave in their attack on universities across the nation, the Copyright Royalty Board has raised the fees levied on internet radio stations so drastically that by July 15, only corporate-backed financing will be able to save internet radio, inevitably resulting in a Clear Channel-style homogenization of what is currently a broad and diverse resource for discovering new independent and underground music.
Back payments for usage through January 2006 mean that many internet broadcasters will be asked to pay out as much as 1000 percent of their revenues, and most will probably simply shut down and walk away. The loss of the internet radio community would be a gigantic blow to the music world, especially since it remains one of the few ways to be exposed to music outside of the mainstream without resorting to digital piracy.
In the meantime, those of us who make the choice to purchase music legally are faced with drastically increasing prices, even from online distributors such as iTunes, where the standard $9.99 album price is gradually being replaced by album prices ranging from $15.99 all the way to $19.99. In many cases, these albums cost significantly more on iTunes than they do at places like Schoolkids Records, despite the fact that no physical product is being purchased at all. Buying music legally over the internet is essentially an act of good faith, since despite the strong-arm tactics of the RIAA it remains both safe and easy to simply fire up BitTorrent and download it for free. Yet the record labels seem to feel no qualms about the wholesale ripping off of their few remaining paying customers.
In light of all this, it is hardly surprising that countersuits are being filed against the RIAA, with charges such as extortion, trespass, conspiracy and deceptive and unfair trade practices.
File-sharing is essentially an unethical practice: it involves taking something that isnÃt yours, even if the person who made it isnÃt being directly affected. Arguments can be made back and forth weighing the pros and cons, but when it comes down to it, stealing music is wrong. Yet it is hard not to sympathize with poor college kids who can barely afford to eat three meals a day, let alone fork out $20 for a bunch of digital files when they could get exactly the same thing for nothing at all.
I donÃt claim to know how to resolve this crisis in the music industry, but it seems clear that intimidating and suing college kids, shutting down internet radio and committing highway robbery on what remains of the customer base is not going to improve the situation.
By the way, this isn’t exactly a phenomenon exclusive to the 21st century: record companies have been attempting to fleece the public for as much money as possible for decades. Back in 1981, MCA wanted to release Tom Petty’s album “Hard Promises” for $9.98, to which Petty responded by threatening to change the album’s title to “The $8.98 Album,” and finally withheld the album from the label entirely until they complied with his demands for a reasonable price. Maybe if more modern artists followed suit and stood up for their fans instead of their pocketbooks, some sort of reasonable compromise could be arranged. I wouldn’t hold my breath, though.
