In the wake of the RIAA’s recent announcement that it is embarking on a series of law suits against file sharers (see my earlier post), I am very surprised that Michael Jackson actually stands out as a voice of reason, recently saying,
I am speechless about the idea of putting music fans – mostly teenagers – in jail for downloading music… It is wrong to illegally download, but the answer cannot be jail. Here in America we create new opportunities out of adversity, not punitive laws, and we should look to new technologies … for solutions. This way, innovation continues to be the hallmark of America. It is the fans that drive the success of the music business.
This is exactly what I’ve been saying for some time now, that the RIAA should be embracing technology and using it to their advantage rather than stifling it, alienating its core consumer base in the process. Although it is a little scary that I’m agreeing with something Michael Jackson said. :-p
Meanwhile, CNN reports that “The music industry has won at least 871 federal subpoenas against computer users suspected of illegally sharing music files on the Internet, with roughly 75 new subpoenas being approved each day.” What bothers me is that “In some cases, subpoenas cite as few as five songs as ‘representative recordings’ of music files available for downloading from these users.” I haven’t been using P2P file-sharing programs as often recently anyway, but these recent developments certainly make me think twice about it, which pisses me off to no end.
The new version of Kazaa Lite, my favorite file sharing application, purports to block IP addresses used by the RIAA to search P2P networks and can block people from viewing your entire shared file list, but whether this is enough protection from their crusade is debatable. I refuse to not share files while using Kazaa, as that is exactly what the RIAA is hoping users will do. However, I only share a small amount of fairly obscure recordings that are hopefully unlikely to attract attention, while still giving something back to the community. I’m still pissed off that it has come to this, though. My advice is to be careful out there and visit the EFF site dedicated to the file-sharing issue to see what you can do.
