Music Piracy

The Recording Industry Association of America is singing a tune of pettiness and vindictiveness by chasing after Jammie Thomas, a so-called music pirate.

Because Thomas made a few dozen music files accessible to other users online through her Kazaa account, she has now become the new poster child for file sharing in a lawsuit that she has recently said she will appeal.

The RIAA’s attempt to silence these online pirates will lead to people feeling more animosity and detachment toward the music industry. They’re the big music conglomerate that can afford to lose a few bucks; Thomas is the single mother with a $36,000 annual salary to fork over $220,000. This can’t be good PR for a megalithic trade company.

It’s a tough call how to solve the issue of illegal music downloading. The legal attacks toward Thomas makes the RIAA look petty and vindictive. But how do we ensure musicians are paid? Artists do make money through other means than record sales. There are concerts and merchandise, and more people in the music industry are turning toward product promotions and crossing into other fields.

What really is the point of the recording industry? Do they serve any purpose for modern artists and their audience? Who does the music belong to: the artist, the company or the purchaser? Radiohead’s decision to sell downloads of their newly released album “In Rainbows” on their Web site may prove the RIAA worthless. They will probably set a precedent for many bands to come.

Are record labels and distributors even an integral part of the music-making and

MySpace is the not-so-new distribution miracle for any artist wanting to break into this scene. An artist from San Marcos can create a promotional page just as easily as the White Stripes or 50 Cent. An artist can create a Web site and sell downloads of their songs via iTunes or Amazon.com.

Record labels also used to be more involved in the creation and evolution of the song and album. But that was at least pre-21st century. Now, record labels and the RIAA seem to devote much of their time to frivolous lawsuits toward people who have much less money that them.

This isn’t the only attempt by the RIAA to go after file sharing. On Dec. 21, the organization filed an unsuccessful lawsuit for a Russian-owned and run Web site called AllOF MP3.com. The RIAA asked for $1.65 trillion in damages and came to that conclusion be multiplying 11 million songs with statutory damages of $150,000 per song. But the RIAA could not obtain jurisdiction over a foreign site. Then, there was Napster.

But in the end, the RIAA couldn’t possibly see people like Thomas as the thief in this situation. You could argue the recording industry’s profits from artist’s albums are the bigger boondoggle than Thomas sharing a few songs over the Internet.