The RIAA: Any Publicity is Good Publicity?

Josh Greenberg [ http://www.grooveshark.com/blog/author/josh/ ]

March 20, 2007

They say that any publicity is good publicity, but when I think of the massive amount of negative PR surrounding the Recording Industry Association of America, I can’t help but wonder if the old saying really is true.

A quick look at the Digg homepage at the time of this blog will show a great example of what I mean. As you can see, out of the top five articles of the day (with over 10,000 diggs between them), three are speaking out against the RIAA, one is speaking out against the MPAA, and one is speaking about how to optimize your ability to get around paying both.

When will this stop? When will the recording industry realize that profiting from suing your own customers [ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=863&CFID=4831227&CFTOKEN=24954887 ], claiming that backing up your own music is not “fair use” [ http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060215-6190.html ], and even limiting the money that artists can make [ http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/80209 ] from their own works is wrong?

It’s not as though nothing can be done. There are many organizations that are attempting to right the wrongs of a corrupt industry. Our friends at Free Culture [ http://freeculture.org/ ], EFF [ http://www.eff.org/ ], FSF [ http://www.fsf.org/ ], and elsewhere are all taking steps to ensure that consumers’ rights are protected, even against the strong legal arm of a huge tyrant. Check them out and see what they’re doing; I assure you, it will be worth your time.