RIAA Devolves Into A "Bloodbath"

[The_root_of_all_evil]

RIAA Devolves Into A "Bloodbath"

The Recording Industry Association of America is firing dozens of workers in what seems to be a total collapse of the lobbying and litigation front.

Major "personnel re-allocations" are already underway, with Hype.bot [http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/02/is-the-.html] suggesting that there could be over 100 people "let go". An unnamed source has even said:

(The) RIAA as you know it is probably history by Tuesday of next week, a formal announcement is being drafted for drop next week.

The recession, and its announced pullback of its 5-year-old litigation campaign, are among the reasons being offered as the cause for the organization's demise.

Over the past five years, almost 30,000 people have been sued for file sharing, but the sudden closure of operations seems to throw a shadow over the future of the RIAA, especially as it was supposed to be moving into ISPs. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/88288-RIAA-Ends-Lawsuits-Goes-After-Your-Internet-Access-Instead]

Or does it? On that day the educational consortium is having a presentation by the guy in charge of Choruss. Choruss itself is the "independent" nonprofit organization that would collect funds from universities and ISPs and disburse them to copyright holders and that three of the "Big Four"(Sony, EMI, Universal, Warner) have signed on.

While those that will be cheering the loss of the assassin of both Napster and Grokster, some believe that it's just a fat-trimming exercise that will see the IFPI [http://www.ifpi.org/] (Suing Pirate Bay), PEGI [http://www.pegi.info/en/index/] (European Rating System), BPI [http://www.bpi.co.uk/] (British Music Protector) and the RIAA combined into some freakishly long acronym gestalt.

There might even be room in there for the The Motion Picture Association of America [http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10157731-93.html], which also announced layoffs last week.

Source: Wired [http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02/riaa-undergoing.html]

Permalink

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

Oh dear sweet hubris, is it you?

 

[paketep]

Good riddance, you bastards

 

[fix-the-spade]

Bah, this is disappointing. I was hoping for an actual bloodbath, ah well, continue to live in hope.

 

[Earthmonger]

I still have major objections to being forced to pay blanket fees for acts of piracy committed by other people. I sincerely hope the RIAA is choking to death and twitching in its final throes.

If they're not, and are instead reforming into one global body, I think this will have to transcend the digital limitations and move into physical retaliation.

 

[Teh_Doomage]

So they are laying off some workers....good, next up, MPAA gives up on being bastards.

 

[MaxFan]

Give the RIAA a bloodbath? Where do I sign up?

 

[scotth266]

Hmph. I certainly won't be sorry to see it go. To be honest, the prevention of piracy is impossible without restricting internet access.

Case in point: my college had a legal music download service called Ruckus, from which you could download everything you wanted for free. The files did have DRM, but someone made a program that ripped it off, so in the end the school wound up giving us all a free legal system of piracy!

 

[Elurindel]

Good riddance to the bastards, suing little girls, broke college students, dead people, and people that don't even own computers!
To think we panicked so much when they were considering movggn to england. I hope this is the final nail in their coffin.

 

[darfjono]

And nothing of value was lost.

 

[dalek sec]

Good bye and good riddance to the bastards who sue little girls for downloading a few songs.