Some Thoughts on the RIAA
I’ve been thinking about this lawsuit involving the RIAA and Jammie Thomas-Rasset. She was ordered to pay $80,000 per song that she downloaded or $1.92 million dollars. $1.92 million for 24 songs? This is absurd and luckily I’m not the only one who thinks so. I’ve been reading many articles on the topic and there seems to be some hope for this woman.
This ruling could actually be unconstitutional according to this PC World article. The constitution has rules against “grossly excessive” punitive damages and I think most people would agree that $80,000 per song is grossly excessive. There have even been some music artists that have been critical of the RIAA and Moby has even said the RIAA should be disbanded.
The music industry is really in a bad situation with this. They are punishing their customers and there have even been studies that say people who download music illegally end up buying more music. They will eventually come around but this lawsuit needs to be appealed and they need to start embracing new technologies.
On a side note, the same PC World article from before stated that this case started five years ago and the RIAA has changed some of their practices. They said that anybody doing today what Jammie Thomas-Rasset did five years ago, they wouldn’t even get charged with anything.
Thoughts on all of this?
