SIVACRACY.NET

Yesterday I heard a lawyer for the RIAA tell the same old lies for the hundreth time. Sigh.

For real thought and brutal honesty, read Ernie Miller on Record Companies Intend to Make Criminals of us All.

Instead of focusing their efforts on unrestricted public distribution via P2P networks, the record labels are poising themselves for an attack on copying/sharing among family members and friends. This doesn't seem to me a wise way to attempt to set copynorms. I've long supported the idea of "sharing with friends, not strangers" as a way to reinforce reasonable copynorms.

And in response to Ernie, here is Michael Madison on Casual Piracy.

Ernie Miller condemns the RIAA’s newest campaign – to stamp out “casual piracy” as the work of “short-sighted morons.” Ernie is too kind; short-sighted morons don’t understand the implications of what they’re doing. The RIAA certainly knows what it’s doing: It wants to put people in jail. The rhetoric of “casual piracy” is like the rhetoric of “casual sex.” The evocative language can’t be accidental; the former is like the latter. The rhetoric starts with: Don’t have fun without taking appropriate precautions. Pretty quickly, the rhetoric ends with: Sex = death. That conclusion is wrong on its own terms, and if you agree, and if you follow the analogy, then going after “casual piracy” doesn’t make the RIAA “short-sighted.” It makes the RIAA ignorant to the point of venality. It becomes the Copyright Inquisition.

Fortunately, few of us are Copyright Catholics, metaphorically speaking. Sure, one way to think through the implications of this news is to conclude that the RIAA’s tactics will be revealed to the masses as illegitimate: We Can’t All Be Criminals. But that hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t know that it will any time soon, if ever. In the info-sphere, most people have info-spiritual choices.

Please read both posts before commenting.