For those of you that don't know the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) having been waging a war on people that share music or films over the internet. It's essentially a fight over money. The two industry groups want people to pay for content and the people that share files are doing it because then they get content for free.
To be very clear, I do believe that people should pay for the content that they are consuming. If you like a song or a film go and buy it or at the very least rent it. Having said that, I want to focus on the RIAA and some of the tactics that they are using to wage this war on file sharers. There are may examples of how low the RIAA will go in order to prove the point that you MUST pay for content and I'll drop those in my blog as I come across them. Most are along the lines of, and are as disgusting as, this story that I posted a couple days ago.
But I came across another story recently that stunned me. The RIAA and the BPI (the British version of the RIAA) have claimed the whole time that they have been looking out for the interests of artists. After all where would the recording industry be without the bands? So that begs the question; what would happen if an artist wanted to give their music away for free? The RIAA and BPI have always claimed that they would support any artist and what they wanted to do with their music. After all that's the whole reason behind having these industry groups in the first place. Unfortuately, this story shows the level of support they are offering to artists that want to give their music away for free.