This letter is a response to Mr. Williams' article entitled "Copyright crackdown: Music industry targets college students with lawsuits to stop illegally downloaded music files." The RIAA thinks that it can will its problems away with the help of its lawyers. Unfortunately for them, this tactic is a public relations nightmare, one with little effect on file-sharing thus far. Since 2003, roughly 18,000 people have been sued in total, including a 7-year-old girl, dead people and people who do not even own computers! At the same time, use of P2P programs has continued to grow, with a total of 15 million households using them to download music in 2006. The music industry claims that it is undertaking this campaign to protect the livelihood of its artists. However, this past December, the RIAA requested to a panel of copyright royalty judges that royalty rates for artists on digital recordings be lowered, asking them to "restore the proper balance ... so that record companies can continue to create the sound recordings that drive revenues for music publishers." With such hypocritical tripe, it is not surprising that CD sales are down almost 20 percent for 2007 so far. People are tired of paying $18 for CDs that only have two decent songs on them. Unless the RIAA offers a reasonable legitimate model (say, one that offers unlimited downloading for a monthly fee) then they will find themselves in the technological dustbin.
Thomas Auchterlonie Sophomore, undecided in the College of Arts and Sciences
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