OK. So I revamped the Pink Floyd song for the title. But it just fit the situation. The Recording Industry Association of America (a.k.a. RIAA) has gone after some frivolous items before with kids and Grandmothers. Recently (if the claims are true) they took the proverbial cake by announcing that people cannot make copies for their music. The RIAA later were quoted “Rips are Unauthorized but we’re not suing over it.” How long before that stance changes? It really does make one wonder - Is the RIAA getting out of control?

I have bought a lot of music in my 35 years on this planet: From 8-tracks to albums and then CD’s. About fifteen years ago I had my car broken into while parked in a parking ramp. They tried to take the car stereo, but thanks to GMC, the stereo was set behind a steel plate in the dash. They didn’t get the stereo, but they did bang up the dashboard a bit. They also were able to nab the CD’s in my car. In that one night I lost over $1000 in music and with the insurance deductable, it just wasn’t worth claiming.

Still I think of all the music I legally bought that later wore out, broke or was forgotten and/or stolen. Before the consumer boom of the internet – approx. ten-to-twelve years ago – the average consumer bought a lot of CD’s, tapes and albums. While I couldn’t find actual numbers, I read earlier in 2007, music sales alone hit into the billions. Chris Daughtry sold 3.2 Million copies last year. Josh Grobins’ “Noel” sold over 2 million.

We have to agree that piracy is an issue and a multi-billion dollar industry of lost revenue. On my site, I endorse Rhapsody simply because I use it. For a monthly fee you can listen to more music than you will ever need. I have even found music that I didn’t expect on the site. It works well because I don’t have to store boxes of CD’s or even keep thousands of MP3s on my computer. As long as I have an internet connection, I have music. And if I want something for my MP3 player, I buy it.

Rhapsody is not the only ones out there. You can buy music from iTunes, Real, MP3.com or a whole bevy of other sites. Admittedly, some sites are shady – The Center for Democracy & Technology (www.cdt.org) documented the “Music Download Warning List”. This is a list of websites that let you pay a onetime fee to download as much music as you want. Hint to all those who want to use them; those sites are SCAMS. You’ll pay your $40 and download some music, but then next week the site may be down and you may be out your membership fee.

The RIAA does have a lot on their hands and in reality they do fight for artists rights. However, sometimes they fight the wrong way. And when you go after people that don’t know better, it doesn’t help your case.

Let’s focus on the case where the RIAA sued a grandmother for illegal downloads. She claimed she never downloaded a single song before, however since she owned the internet connection, she was faulted for it.

I can open an internet connection wirelessly. Other people can get on it to surf and even download items. So if someone gloms onto grandma’s internet connection, is she responsible for what is downloaded?

By going after grandma, the RIAA is fighting a losing battle. Even they admit that after court costs the battle is not monetarily worth it. So if you created a song and that song is part of the “Frequency of Songs” list for the lawsuit, you might see some compensation if the song is on the top of that list.

It’s like the infamous “Zip Drive” lawsuit – Iomega Corp had a rebate incentive to purchase Zip drives. However the rebates were never handed out properly. The settlement was to pay out $40 for each customer that bought a drive – however they have to prove that it was purchased. I will never see my rebate simply because I didn’t keep the receipt.

How about those Multi – Million dollar settlement with the conglomerate that did something wrong (Netflix lawsuit comes to mind)? The settlement is big, but if you were part of the lawsuit, you’d be lucky if you saw more than a five dollar return.  To get those five dollars, you still have to jump through a lot of hoops to be considered for the settlement.

Consumers lose money out of the deal no matter what. Heck, they say a brand new car will lose half its value the second it drives off the lot. Yet we still need a car to drive to work, pick up the kids or go grocery shopping. Trying to keep the buck you made is a tricky game.

Consumer groups have been out there protecting us and companies for a long time. RIAA is a consumer group. In reality, they fight to make sure music prices don’t go up. Right now we pay 99 cents a song but maybe in five years that will have to grow due to piracy. It would be great if that didn’t need to happen. We have too much items increasing in price to worry about music costing more.

All in all - the big picture is this – there is illegal reproduction of a song going on as we speak. Computers that have music on it most likely have a few songs that were “questionably obtained”. That unfortunately will not change anytime soon. Sometimes people will do it unknowingly. And the RIAA should go for those who are trying to make big bucks on songs they did not create. Sometimes you have to overlook the smaller items to get to the heart of the matter then turn around and educate the consumers on how to obtain music legally. If they did that, maybe there wouldn’t be such a backlash.

After all, you can’t eat your pudding until you finish your meat.

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