Copywrong

There can be few more odious organisations in the world today than the RIAA. Essentially, their remit sounds like a good one - protect the interests of music artists and their intellectual property. After all, musicians earn their money from entertaining proles like us, so they deserve to be paid for what they do, right? I'd not argue that point, for sure, and I'm happy to pay for my entertainement. Even stuff I download, I only download to see if I like it. If so then I buy the CD as I'm mildly anally retentive and like to have the originals.

The problem is that the RIAA have gone a bit mental after winning a few battles against file sharing and the like. Instead of protecting artists rights they now mostly sit rocking back and forth with globs of spittle at the corners of their collective mouths trying to think up new ways of making themselves look mean, petty and stupid and by extension tarnishing artists with that reputation as well. It would appear that their collective God complex is so great that they are even throwing their weight about in the name of artists who don't even want the RIAA to act on their behalf.

This has been going on for several years: This 2003 San Francisco Chronicle article is one example of artists being unimpressed by the RIAA's bully boy tactics and general ignorance. Much as I dislike the band, Nine Inch Nails provided DRM-free versions of songs from their new album some of which were in formats ready for remixing using sequencing software. This was something which was actively done by the band with their record labels full knowledge and blessing and yet the RIAA tried to stop the marketing campaign by sending legal threats to web sites hsoting the files.

Want more? well, this year the RIAA set up a hip-hop DJ and producer well known (and well respected) for making mixtapes by hiring the guy and his sidekick and then arresting him for making the mix they requested (the full story is on the NY Times website but the miserable scrotes insist you sign up before you can read articles on their site so I'll leave that to you to decide if you wish to do). Apparently, it is well known in the industry that there are many acts who would not have achieved the level of exposure and, by inference, income that they have had they not been featured by DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon on their mixes. Nor was there a single artist who was identified as feeling wronged by Drama and Cannon, yet the RIAA still took it upon themselves to act like arseholes.

They're utterly incompetent too. There are numerous examples, but I'll list just a couple.

1) They tried to sue a dead 83 year old grandmother who had never owned a computer.

2) They tried to sue another grandmother (bit of a theme here - perhaps they think grandmothers are a softer target than tech-savvy kids?) for allegedly downloading, amongst other things, Snoop Dogg.

3) Just for completeness, they tried suing yet another granny who didn't even know what file-sharing was. Unfortunately for them, she is countersuing alleging that the RIAA used an unlawful private investigation in their original lawsuit against her. Hopefully she will win and make them look as stupid as they really are.

Clearly, the RIAA is inept in the extreme. The above three incidents are far from isolated and they don't just target little old ladies.

Now, their latest wheeze is to order the removal, from YouTube of course, of around one hundred instructional videos which have been posted by a well known guitar teacher. In fact, between this guy and another well known teacher, there were close to 200 videos. One is based in San Diego (David Taub), the other in London (Justin Sandercoe) and both are professional guitarists. The videos mostly show the basics such as picking, chords, scales and so on, but you cannot teach any instrument successfully unless you teach real-world examples of tunes. However, because the guy used a Rolling Stones song, the RIAA have decided to stick their oar in and claim copyright infringement.

Truth is, these videos don't even feature the whole songs, just sections to demonstrate the practical application of the techniques being taught. To have two professional guitarists provide effectively free tuition is fantastic; there are plenty of people out there who would love to learn guitar but don't have access to that level of private tuition and now they've been denied it again by a group of self-important greed-mongers who are only interested in feathering their own nests no matter what the costs. There are still some instructional videos on YT from Sandercoe and the ever astounding Tommy Emmanuel (amongst others) but it's a sad day for music that it has come to this.

Want to know the real rub? You can bet your life that even if the Rolling Stones said "No, we don't mind - it's good to inspire people with our music, let them carry on" the RIAA probably wouldn't care. Somehow they have a mandate to do as they please regardless of the wishes of artists and yet still they claim to be protecting the interests of said artists. Seriously, somehow these self-righteous morons have to be stopped because it is out of control and all they are dooing is wrecking peoples lives and the reputation of artists and the music industry in general. Speaking as a hobby guitarist I'm very miffed that they have targetted music teachers. After all, without instructional sessions from teachers, there wouldn't be half as many musicians out there and the RIAA wouldn't have anything to do.

Actually come to think of it that's not such a bad thing at all...