RIAA to engage with the silver surfers

IT HAS BECOME CLEAR that the RIAA is losing ground in the file sharing wars. They tried to play nice (actually, no they didn't), tried to offer a superior product (actually, for years they offered no product), and tried to appeal to people's decency (actually, they called everyone thieves from day one). To fend off users legal rights, they have tried to employ a variety of technological methods which seem to have stymied those without permanent markers for the better part of 20 minutes. All is not well in lawsuit central, the California edition, not the Utah one.

The latest tact has been to throw out a large amount of lawsuits out whenever the press starts flagging, or worse yet, questioning their viability. Nothing like big numbers and scare tactics to get headlines, especially when most media outlets are owned by companies that also own a large record label. The synergies are incredible.

A few months ago, they announced over 700 lawsuits, and that tided them over for a while. Numbers show that since that announcement, file sharing is down substantially, and record sales are, err, down substantially also. Probably just a blip, sales declines of late have nothing to do with overpriced CDs, bad music offerings, and alienated users, it must be those filthy pirates.

Well, in the weeks following the initial lawsuits, the file sharing ecosystem let out a collective yawn, and went back to doing what they were before. The RIAA leapt into action, this time with a new tactic, targeted subpoenas. From the headlines garnered in the latest round of 261 lawsuits, they have gone after specific demographic segments that are at high risk to pirate music. The first demographic was the evil 'Under thirteen girls who live with a single parent in government subsidized housing and are honor students at catholic school'. (See here) Others evildoers in this group of gangsters and organized criminals are the over 70 demographic (See here), and the ivy league professor gang.

In all, a very effective tactic at headline grabbing, nothing like suing a 12-year-old girl to strike fear in the hearts of those set on illegal activity. Quake mortals! The next round will start in a few weeks, most likely about six. Other specific groups will be targeted, just like the last round. While the RIAA is keeping the groups targeted close to the vest, we have it on good authority that 'Operation Paraplegic' and 'Operation Low-Vision' are already under way. µ