The Recording Industry Association of America continues its fight against illegal downloading and music copying, and they’re really ratcheting up the insanity. At this point I half expect their spokesperson to ride a nuclear bomb down on illegal downloaders a la Dr. Strangelove. First up, Billboard reports that they’ve sent another round of “pre-litigations settlement letters” to university campuses this week. This is the 11th wave of such letters, meant to notify the campus network administrators that the kids are downloading “Lip Gloss” again. Out of the 22 institutions which received letters, Minnesota’s Gustavus Adolphus led the way, receiving 36 of the notices, followed closely by the University of Southern California at 33. Jonathan Lamy, the RIAA’s senior VP of communications, issued this statement from their underground bunker: “For those who ignore these great legal options and ignore years of warnings, we will continue to bring lawsuits. It’s not our first choice, but it’s a necessary part of the equation.”
Much more awesomely, the RIAA is now maintaining that the files on your hard drive you’ve ripped from the CDs you bought legally at the record store with good old American Rubles are themselves “unauthorized copies.” That’s right: you buy a CD, rip it to your Mac, pop it on your iPod: you’re a criminal two times over. Breakin’ the law! Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation from Sony BMG, says that making a copy of a song you own is “just a nice way of saying ‘steals just one copy’.”
Coming soon: the RIAA demands it be allowed to surgically remove the collections of synapses which “remember” songs illegally in human brains. How are labels supposed to make any money if all of us just sit around thinking about songs we’ve heard?
