Wrath of the RIAA

It seems that the golden age of file-sharing is coming to a close. Much to our amazement, the unfortunate reality is that the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) legal campaign against student file-sharers is working. The repercussions of this crusade may mean increased vigilance on the part of music-swapping students—gone are the days of worry-free Kazaa­­—but it doesn’t mean that the RIAA’s aggressive legal actions spell success for their drive to preserve the music industry’s ingenuity. It could be that these lawsuits, which the association is firing off with such impunity, will boomerang, crippling the industry that it’s allegedly trying so hard to save.

Last Wednesday, the RIAA filed 400 lawsuits against college students across the nation, including 11 against Harvard students for sharing music files over a high-speed academic network. The lawsuits are filed under the Digital Millennium Copyrights Act and seek $2,000 per file in compensation—though they’re usually settled for $3,000 out of court. Unfortunately, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) followed suit on Thursday, filing similar lawsuits against students at 12 universities.

The lawsuits against our peers have proven effective in their intent to, in the words of President of RIAA Cary Sherman, put “students and users everywhere on notice that there are consequences to illegal uses of this special network.” Before doing what was previously so easy, just a matter of a few clicks, we will all hesitate, thinking of that kid next door who now has to scrape together thousands to repent for his dishonorable double-clicks.

But ultimately, there are ways of sharing files that are relatively safe from the wrath of the music industry’s lawyers; even if the RIAA and MPAA shut down every existing avenue there will be four more tomorrow. Where there’s a significant market—about 60 million people in America share files, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation—there’s a way. Of course, this largely misses the point. The RIAA, with its army of lawyers, is slowly but surely poisoning the well from which it drinks; by suing their clients’ customers and fans they are building an atmosphere of animosity among the demographic they need the most.

The RIAA is reacting to symptoms of a larger disease that it has yet to cure, largely because they haven’t realized that it isn’t a disease at all. The disease—a widespread dissatisfaction with the exorbitant price of music combined with the ease of obtaining music on the Internet—can’t be cured by litigation. The music industry must realize that music consumers are simply not willing to drive to the music store, find a compact disc—for the one song they long to hear—buy it for roughly $20, and upload it to their computer. The traditional process is expensive and time consuming; it forces one to pay for unwanted songs along with those that are, and, in our iPod culture, many music fans don’t even use the original compact disc after they upload the songs onto their computer anyway.

That said, it should be noted that we understand concerns of intellectual property rights. And we’re sympathetic. However, it’s a new day for the music industry; instead of fighting the future, the RIAA and the artists that they represent should embrace the Internet, and the trend that is being set by wildly successful ventures such as Apple’s iTunes music store. Scare tactics such as lawsuits will only encourage innovative students to devise new ways of anonymously procuring free music. Instead, the RIAA should work with music fans and Internet software developers to come up with a good alternative.