Playing Fair

In an effort to squash illegal peer-to-peer filesharing, the Recording Industry Association of America has decided to sue their consumers into submission. With the threat of a law suit, the RIAA is attempting to scare those stealing music (primarily young teenagers and college students) into paying for it. Lately, there has been much talk about new Fair Use legislation that would protect consumers from the relentless suing by the RIAA.

Meanwhile, Steve Jobs recently released a statement on the Apple website calling for an end to Digital Rights Management. By removing encryption on iTunes tracks, consumers can play iTunes downloads on any device they want. While this might decrease record sales, it would allow consumers a broader spectrum of use for the tracks they've bought.

Seemingly in response, Representatives Rick Boucher and John Doolittle recently introduced the Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing US Entreprenership Act of 2007 to amend the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998. Through this act, it would allow the consumer to disable Digital Rights Management copyright protection on digital recordings in order to use the track for personal use. Additionally, it would make content more accessible for teachers and other professionals using the information or recordings in an academic setting.

Naturally, the RIAA nearly immediately fired back at the introduction of the bill, claiming that it was impossible to tell who would be disabling DRM for personal purposes and who was doing so for illegal purposes. While they have no better solutions, they will definitely fight this legislation.

The bill seems to be generating positive response among the technological and political communities. This act was introduced at the end of last week and it has already received support from the Consumer Electronics Association. They say that this new act helps protect the consumer as well as the copyright owner - the DMCA heavily favored the copyright owner at the expense of the consumer.

In an interview on KNX radio this afternoon, a congressional representative praised the new bill as amending the DMCA to create more of a balance between consumers and copyright owners. Interestingly, he went on to mention how rapidly the industry is changing. With the invention of the internet, use of the radio has decreased; however, he made the point that radio used to sell records. People could listen to a song as much as the wanted for free, but would usually still go out and buy the record. He believes the same will be true in the future, but the free music must be made available to the consumer in order to sell records.

Even the suits on Capitol Hill seem to get it, so why doesn't the RIAA? The industry is changing and the RIAA should offer viable alternatives to the buying public rather than resisting the inevitable.