Opinion
 

RIAA should not be crying

Craig Byrnes
Opinion Columnist

The lights are going down, but the show is not going on. Well, at least not for the hardcore music sharer.

It has been a long time coming, but the recording industry has decided it is losing money, and the culprit is technology. The Recording Industry Association of America, a lobbying group for the record labels, announced two weeks ago that it would surf the Internet and look for users with the largest collections of copyrighted, downloaded and shared music files.

This time -- unlike the Napster "raid" -- it seeks to file lawsuits against the users for up to $150,000 for each copyright infringement. This is an issue that skirts the line drawn by the First Amendment.

So who is losing money from online music sharing?

It isn't the industry -- the folks who run around in limos and spend their money like it grows on the apple tree.

It's the local musician.

Corporations have taken over the airwaves, and left the little guy standing out in the blizzard with the Backstreet Boys, and it is just not right.

There are two clear sides to the argument, but file-sharing is just people swapping songs. This is just one more example of how monopolistic conglomerates can push their will, walk the tightrope of legality and never look back to see what raw piece of art they are leaving behind in the process.

Keeping the file-sharing lanes open would support unsigned bands and singer/songwriters and offer them somewhere to be heard. The opposite side of the argument comes from the recording industry.

Citing the record low CD sales over the past three years, the industry blames digital piracy.

"The recording industry is not going to win if all they do is sue people," said Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a Washington-based advocacy group on technology and copyright issues, in an Associated Press interview. "They can sue all they want, but that's not going to make CD sales go up."

The RIAA is using a scare tactic that does not address the issue of CD sharing by the consumers, but only seeks to hit technology. Some have speculated such a move could cause hostile responses from the consumers.

"I think its wrong for them to target the individual; it's not like I'm stealing these or bootlegging them or anything," said Damian Shillaci, drummer for the regional band Gun Crazy. "If they're going to sue anybody they should sue Kazaa, because the program is free and did not tell me I couldn't download the songs."

Suing Joe Downloader for hundreds of thousands of dollars is impractical, especially when the threat has not slowed downloading trends over the past week. The number of users still fluctuates between 3.4 million and 4.4 million according to figures reported by Kazaa. The music industry supplies entertainment to the public, entertainment that many musicians would record or already have recorded for free just to be heard. So why does the industry have such a hard time connecting with its consumer?

"We are committed to communicating the message that offering copyrighted music online is illegal. It hurts artists, songwriters and everyone else who brings music to the public, and we will hold those who engage in this activity accountable," RIAA spokeswoman Amy Weiss told the AP.

Maybe they have just been caught up by the new -- but old -- moral code being followed by the government post-9/11 and the countless corporate scandals. But unless they come to terms, the problem will only increase.

Byrnes, a junior communication major, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu.