File Sharing

As you’ve probably heard, the RIAA is launching or about to launch some lawsuits against individuals. People have been serving notice. The subpoenas have been flying. But what will it all bring? Better anonymization in peer-to-peer clients? Perhaps. An end to peer-to-peer file sharing as we know it? Probably not. Some are taking the RIAA’s hint and have stopped sharing. Others are blazing onward. But at the end of the day the problem has not been addressed. Do this RIAA: create a system where people can trade files on a subscription basis. Have people pay a fee and then be able to download. The artists/labels get paid and people find the music that they want. Even listening to myself type that, I think the RIAA is too conservative and too entrenched to setup something like that. Basically they want the distribution to remain unchanged — a one-way transaction: from store to consumer. Apple’s iTunes store and Emusic.com are perhaps the best two examples of that — and yet both are quite different from each other.

So my advice to you, is to hang tight for a little while longer. Wait and see how the lawsuits take shape and see who is targeted. I think we’ll have a better idea fairly soon of who the RIAA is after.