Napster Gooood!

Posted on 12/20/2008 at 8:24 am by Bob Cesca

The final chapter in the illegal music download saga — fow now:

LOS ANGELES — The group representing the U.S. recording industry said Friday it has abandoned its policy of suing people for sharing songs protected by copyright and will work with Internet service providers to cut abusers’ access if they ignore repeated warnings.

The RIAA sued around 35,000 people for sharing copyrighted music online.

While pirating music is clearly illegal, the RIAA and Metallica waaaay overreacted. I always believed that record sales in the last ten years declined due to, you know, the industry releasing a lot of crappy music — the result of corporate group-think and an utter lack of risk taking that saturates the broader entertainment industry. The cash spent on legal action would’ve been better invested on innovation. All that said, I was able to exploit the whole thing for its comedy gold.

Adding… On a related note, can the record companies please stop disabling the embed feature on YouTube? It’s ridiculous and pointless. And it makes choosing a Morning Awesome every day even more difficult. We blogotubers want to promote your stuff for free, record companies. Why do insist on making it harder for us?

This entry was posted in Internet and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • Myhero

    I use firefox, there is an addon called greasemonkeywhich has a script called videoembed which automatically embeds any youtube link found on a webpage automatically for me. I never have to navigate away to watch a clip.

  • frictionsoul

    My two cents: music sales rely on radio. ClearChannel fogged up radio. And then to have the RIAA clamp down was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of because they were missing out that CC stations played what CC told them to play.An awful lot of good music has been created but not by bands with mainstream recording contracts.

  • http://obamaproject.windonwater.net QueenTiye

    Are you not troubled by the rest of the article, where RIAAbwill work with ISPs to cut off offenders?QT

  • Bob_Cesca

    >>Are you not troubled by the rest of the article, where RIAAbwill work with ISPs to cut off offenders?Oh absolutely I am. But at least the RIAA isn’t nailing offenders with lawsuits as well as the accompanying legal expenses.

  • http://www.leestranahan.com Lee Stranahan

    The no embed thing is really stupid – I don’; even see what it gets the record companies,

  • GItheJOE

    Bob, how in the hell have I missed your cartoons? They are fucking hilarious.I was a Metallica fan and a Napster fan. I remember the how thing very well because I was in high school when Lars decided to sue for more money because Metallica just didn’t have enough. I believe this is the definition of corporate music and I am sure Kurt Cobain would have taken Lars and James out before he took himself out.

  • dontpanic23

    no more sweating bullets Whew.That first part is some good news. The second sucks. But at least someone would get a warning to alter their habits in varying ways and not lose their house with no warning, as in the original lawsuit tactic. As someone who, ahem, knows someone who was downloading back when Napster was not-yet-technically-illegal and it took 2 hours to d/l one song on dialup–like the walking 3 miles to school barefoot stories–this is a relief. This person originally bought much of what was downloaded on vinyl or cassette and even 8 track, so he/she always felt morally ok with it but nervous because it was probably no defense.

  • Teaflax

    And just a side note, of the 35 000 lawsuits the RIAA has brought which have netted millions of dollars, how much has gone to an artist of any kind.? Not a cent.’Nuff said.