[Nabeel]

Here's my take on it: I wrote this column for my college's newspaper.

Recording Industry created its own enemies
By Nabeel Jawahir
Contributing columnist


In a desperate attempt to dissuade the millions of people who download and swap music files online, the Recording Industry Association of America has begun to prosecute 261 individuals whom they deem as to be “major offenders.”

These folks, who shared an average of about 1,000 copyrighted music files each, are bound to be portrayed by the RIAA as examples of what happens when you download and share copyrighted materials. While most people will not dispute the illegality of sharing music, the major question that needs to be asked here is why the RIAA is facing all these woes in the first place.

Without a doubt, the practices and actions of the RIAA over the years have greatly contributed to its current vulnerable situation.

Compact disc sales have dropped more than 30 percent since mid-2000. While the RIAA would like to complain that this is reason enough to put an end to Internet file sharing, it is ignoring the bigger picture.

Few people, especially not poor college students like us, are willing to pay almost $20 for a CD that may have three good tracks. These high prices are due to pure greed on the part of the RIAA.

A compact disc costs only about 6 cents to stamp — less than when the technology first debuted — but the RIAA, always eager to make a profit, has refused to lower the price one bit.

It is also questionable whether the RIAA is sending out a positive message by actively prosecuting file sharers. Without a doubt, many ordinary individuals are guilty of downloading music from programs such as KaZaa and WinMx, mainly due to the astronomical prices of CDs.

By going after the “little people,” the RIAA is doing little more than reinforcing its image as a greedy purveyor of overpriced merchandise, ever ready to pounce on anybody who dares undermine its sovereignty.

A better solution would be to avoid lawsuits altogether, and the requisite bad publicity that accompanies litigation such as this. The RIAA tries to make it up to online music swappers by charging them a fee to download new music off the net, and thereby avoid prosecution.

Nice try, but a program enabling users to download music for a small fee should have been enacted years ago, in place of the half-hearted attempts being put forth years later.

People may obviously argue that with the advent of high-speed Internet and CD burners, this type of file sharing was inevitable. This is probably true to a certain extent, but it is extremely doubtful that file swapping would have taken off the way it did if it were not for the high prices of music in stores.

Had CDs been priced lower in the first place, the extent of music file-sharing would not have reached the epic proportions of today, since people would not feel a need to download all the songs if an entire CD only cost five or six bucks at the store. By forcing individuals to pay $15 for a CD — think three days worth of lunch — the backlash was all too predictable.

Even more laughable is the latest “amnesty” attempt put forth by the RIAA last week. In order to avoid a potential lawsuit, one can voluntarily identify oneself as a file-sharer, delete all accumulated music files on their computer and promise not to share any more files.

If that fails, then I suppose the RIAA may threaten to spank them and send them to their rooms to think about what they have done.

The best thing for the RIAA to do now would be to admit that they have made big mistakes in the past and make a genuine effort to satisfy the music fans they have arrogantly ignored for so long.

Make CDs cheaper and allow a much broader selection of music to be available online, for a small monthly fee for subscribers. A few days ago, Universal Records announced that it was dropping the prices of its CDs substantially, in hope of lower prices promoting greater sales.

Let that serve as a precedent for the industry, before the next wave of litigation further sours the relationship between the recording industry and the consumer.

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Nabeel Jawahir is a political science sophomore. His views do not necessarily represent those of the Kernel.

Sep 17, 2003