RIAA: The true number of the Beast
After reading Free Culture in both digital and print format (which can be found online for free here), I realized something: I don't like writing in my book. I had first read chapters 1-3 in my print copy of the book which had cost $13.50. I didn't take many notes in my fear of marking up the book too heavily with my heavy handed penciling. When I read chapters 4-6 in printed format, I wrote copious comments, read the material more carefully and basically became a lot more intimate with the stuff. This brings up the real point that Lawrence Lessig is trying to make, at what point does regulation interfere with innovation?
Lessig makes a claim that innovation is as much based upon the modification of existing technology as the creation of something uniquely 'original'. Through the manipulation of logistics, Lessig details instances where the utilization of various technologies have been stopped by various regulatory mechanisms: primarily the Recording Industry Association of America or RIAA.
The RIAA seems truly pitiless and ruthless in its hunt for 'pirates' as lessig describes. The case of Jesse Jordan, who paid $13,000 for modifying an existing program to make it more palatable to human habits seems to make Lessig's point relatively clear. However, I was even more shocked to discover in the Harvard College Free Culture blog that the RIAA suggested to an MIT undergrad that she should drop out of school in order to pay her legal settlement. (Details can be found here )
More than anything, these examples reveal an interesting point about the RIAA and their extremely unscrupulous tactics.
Comments
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: April 6, 2007 08:22 AM
If the RIAA had existed thoughout history, neither the Renaissance mass repertoire nor the music of Ives (as we know it) would exist.