The Onion Comes Through Again

My main beef against the music industry is hilariously put here. RIAA has no one but themselves to blame for their situation. And I have a sneaking suspicion that their attempts to control the Napster clones will ultimately prove futile. At any rate, they have no right to be doing what they're doing, invading private computers, shutting down private rights to trade data. If making a friend a mix tape isn't illegal, why is downloading a song from Kazaa? The only thing that's different is the technology and the scale on which it can be done. No one's profiting by it, so how can it be a copyright violation?





If the industry had embraced MP3 technology when it was new, then they could have found a way to profit from it by now (and Steve Jobs may have just come up with a way for them yet). Instead, they went on the defensive, standing against technological change, which history shows to be unwise in the long term. If they're unable to deal with new formats, that's they're problem. They can go the way of the dodo like other companies who refused to grow with the times. Why the Republicans in Congress are paying any attention to the industry they constantly accuse (not entirely inaccurately) of demeaning American culture is beyond me. Perhaps the real pressure's coming from the Democrats, who can generally count on RIAA for campaign contributions.