RIAA Attempts to Indoctrinate the Next Generation

Almost everyone I know hates the RIAA, which is odd, because I don’t know that many people who should have reason to hate the association. Perhaps the hate stems from the many stories that are circulating, many proven true, about the shoddy way people suspected of actions not in accordance with the whims of the RIAA, are treated. I saw this, and immediately wondered how much of this will be allowed, and for how long.

from DownloadSquad

It’s no secret that I reserve special levels of scorn for the Record Industry Association of America - the music industry body whose moments of fame include suing the dead for copyright theft and in the process destroying any consumer goodwill towards the music labels. It’s not that I loathe paying for my music - nothing could be farther from the truth - it’s just that as a legitimate customer, I can’t help but feel that I get the rough end of the stick for being honest.

Whilst most adults know that it’s illegal to share music online, there’s clearly a question of how to teach school-kids the law - and their fair-use rights. Enter the RIAA’s recently updated “Music-Rules!” curriculum, which encourages youngsters to create class projects to educate their peers in how to legitimately obtain music:

Imagine that you are in the music industry… With your team of fellow music industry employees, plan an information campaign that lets others know why it’s important to get their music the right way… You’ll want to convince your classmates that your teams’ plan is the one that will become the class project!

Challenge: Take your campaign a step further by contacting the editor of your community newspaper or the director of your community cable television station to see if you can submit an article or video about your campaign.

Whilst it’s understandable that the RIAA would seek to ‘educate’ children in the legality of sharing music online, the convenient omission of fair-use (complex though it may be to explain to younger children) means that the RIAA’s campaign fails to convince us it’s anything more than a glorified PR campaign. After years of intimidating adults, and now attempting to use children as unpaid PR hacks, it’s hard to do anything but criticise the RIAA’s ongoing tactics.

After tactics like this, it only follows that the next thing that will occur is that the RIAA will begin a program of indoctrinating children to ‘rat-out’ their parents and anyone else they suspect of less than the ideal of perfectly acceptable behavior.I have always been on the sidelines, thinking that, since I buy my CDs and don’t pirate music of any kind, this will not affect me. But left to their own devices, the RIAA will cause the entire planet (well, maybe a stretch, but you get the idea) to become an agent of the RIAA, ready at a moment’s notice to cause problems for friends, neighbors, and acquaintances.

This is insidious behavior, and unlike the speech of our President, guiding children toward responsibility, and staying in school, this can cause real harm.

This must be put down, like a rabid dog, immediately, and with no chance of delay. We must also fight to keep agencies that would do this sort of thing out of the schools, where minds are easily influenced.

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Save Fair Use, while people still know what it means.

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mama, we’re all pirates now! That’s what the nice lady from the RIAA told me.

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