The RIAA and Piracy

[S-uper_T-oast]

I was reading the RIAA website, and I learned a few things. The RIAA is stepping up their lawsuites against alleged sellers of pirated music, creators of pirated CDs/Tape, and people who use P2P fileshares to dowload music. Everyday I am hearing about new lawsuites from the music industry concerning piracy, but is "piracy" ever justified? I know many people who use different P2P fileshares to download techno music, why do they do that you might ask? The answer is that they have to. I live in Minnesota and we have horendous music selection; rap, country, poprock, those are the choices we are given. Now if I want to get a new Iridium Gold CD I have two choices, download the songs from Kazaa, or pay Barnes and Noble $55.99 to import me a CD. Another point using techno music is that many DJs don't release international CDs, so the only way to get a new track is to go online and download it from sombody. And then to have my ISP saying my account is going to be banned due to an impending lawsuit from the RIAA? I don't see any way that this works. I understand that they want to make a profit, but why do I have to get screwed in the process? Is "piracy" ever justifiable?

RIAA Website

[Cylob]

They mentioned something on the news this morning about stepping-up lawsuits. I'm not worried or fearful. I need music, probably more than anything else. It's just something I have to do.

[primal scream]

i think this entire sisutation will see the riaa vs the ppl scenario and well we know whose going to win sadly.
I think the RIAA are just being naieve, pricay is a problem much bigger than just the internet, there are loads of alternatives to P2P software and they cant control it, and it not only music all forms of meida, and the internet is not the only outlet, i recentley visted india for a family trip, and there the only soloution is pricay because they dont get the real thing there now im estimating record companies are losing a lot of money because of that. So if the RIAA want to take action its has to much bigger than fining people. Plus for me its more important to improve public serivces and improve the conuntry than bombing other countries and looking for internet downloaders, also i dont understand the RIAA policy if you fine you prospective customers there not going to have any money to buy music, its called oppertunity cost so wont there record sales wont go through the roof.
Also i deem music to be an art form, for me im listing to creative output of a person or persons is the most important thing, now art is not something that should be about profit, but sadly music is tied into big business, i dont think kelly clarkson is expressing her slef artisitcaly (however u spell it!!) however bands like blur have made clear that due to album leaks more people can listen to an album, which is what happend to me, i wasnt a big blur fan but after downloading the new album i was amamazed and became fan, same with 60% of the music i listen to, the stones, beatles,led zeppelin, all these bands dont exsit anymore now no teenager is going to pay to listen to this music because theres no point but because it has been made avabile you see a lot of teengers listing to "old" music.
I think this is a sisuation where sadly big buisness is going to control, they control the world, we dont, thats a fact ive learned by doing advanced economics and politcs over the last 2 years, and it works everything else means living a life that would be hell. this is far bigger issue than pircay.

end of rant