Just when you think someone couldn’t be more out of touch with their customer base…

The RIAA goes and TOTALLY cements their record of complete insanity concerning what their customers have proven, time and again, that they want.

Here’s the newest flash for all you music pirates out there.

And there are more of you than you might think, since the RIAA contends that…

Making a digital copy of ANY song from a legally purchased album that you yourself own, even if that digital copy is only for your own use, constitutes music piracy.

That’s right, folks.

I’ll admit right now. I’ve ripped every CD I own to digital copies.

In fact, over the next year I will re-rip all of them, as I’d like higher quality digital copies than what I originally ripped.

And the RIAA can KMA as far as I’m concerned. I consider it more than fair use. I don’t have a CD player in my car. I only carry digital copies with me, and only a subset of the whole at that. And no one else is listening to either the digital copies or original CD at the same time.

This should really go down as the most ignorant business decision in the history of business, all the way to the first time one caveman paid another for a hunk of animal meat with a pair of shiny rocks.

Think of it like George Bush’s cockamamie amnesty program for illegal aliens, in reverse.

And this is huge.fracking.stupid (just like the aformentioned amnesty program).

This runs counter to every idea of non-monopolistic commerce that has ever been. The music industry, as a whole, has had at least 10 years to get their collective heads out of their collective backsides, and they’ve steadfastly refused to do what needed to be done.

Which is work out a reasonable framework for electronic commerce, with actual use rights that make sense for the reality of digital playback.

Not that they haven’t had several options that have been floated past them.

Napster was a dead simple, no-brainer solution that anyone in their right mind should have recognized as a perfect system for the music companies to ride into the next millenium.

Think of it as the eBay for the music industry. Which they promptly litigated into insignificance.

And then there’s iTunes. Which they are also trying to squeeze into oblivion.

Here’s a question…

An artist’s video is uploaded to YouTube. What’s to stop me from recording the audio from that video while it plays?

What will the RIAA suggest next? A ban, or worse yet, a surcharge on short audio cables?

Honestly…

There’s only one response that makes sense for consumers.

An outright boycott of packaged retail music from members of the RIAA.

It’s not they haven’t been price-fixing/gouging for years. To the point of being sued for antitrust violations a few years ago. Which the labels promptly used to send a big F-U to the rest of us by shipping millions of completely worthless CDs to libraries and schools as part of their settlement, basically dumping their trash on non-profits. Real classy, huh?

But it’s time to get serious. And here’s a handy site that can help you out…

RIAARadar.com

This site can look up any release by artist, album, UPC code or label. It’s not 100%, but it’s pretty close. Even better, it offers a mobile version that you can use to check UPC codes while you’re on the go or in-store. And there’s a GreaseMonkey script which will pop up instant RIAA Radar results while you’re browsing on Amazon.

So that’s it. Quit buying from the RIAA mafia. Maybe they’ll get the hint. I doubt it tho. They’re already facing a 21% decline. And they steadfastly refuse to admit that the problem they have is one of their own making.

|| posted by chris under business, clueless, kma, media, mobility, thumbs down || comments (1) || ||