My point isn't that it's ok to steal the stuff. My point is that the RIAA members have brought this on themselves. They push artists to release new material faster than they can write it therefore compromising quality then squeeze every last penny out of them before dumping them. Further, as soon as an artist that is "different" has some success they co-opt the look, the sound, the whole thing and package Joe P. McPrettyboy to sell the whole thing as if it were new, turning the whole thing into a homogenized, soulless mess. The movie industry is exactly the same.
As far as the RIAA lawsuits go, read what I said above. They WILL NOT GO TO COURT unless they are 100% positive of the outcome. Snoop around a little and you will see that they drop the cases immediately when there is even the smallest shadow of doubt. The only time they have pursued a case in court is when they had a chance to set a precedent. This is the case where they sued a woman who then said it was possible that her children might have downloaded the music. They Real Imbecils Assaulting Americans pursued that case so they could set the precedent that a parent is financially liable to them for their minor children's activity. That is the ONLY case they have pursued.
Believe you me, we are firmly in the technology age and Big Business is writing the legislation that will govern how YOU will do things in YOUR HOME with your legally purchased media. DMCA, Net Neutrality, media consolidation, these aren't just vague concepts or blurbs you hear in the media. These people want to control the channel from the artists lips all the way to your ears and eyes. Do you want NewsCorp dictating everything you see and hear, and the price you pay for it? TimeWarner? THAT is what this is about. Every time the RIAA or the MPAA gets a win in court, or in Congress, or a payout for some poor schmuck to broke and scared to fight them is a loss for all of our rights. Those are the stakes. HDMI is a horrible standard for video connections. Why was it picked? Well, they want all content going through a single cable (HDMI 2 will carry all content, including video, digital audio, SACD, etc) so they can put a content protection scheme on it (HDCP anyone?) making it impossible to play "illegal" content. HDMI was the only one around that fit the bill at the time, technical inferiority be damned.
So, if this continues, will will be watching crap movies and listening to crap music (even more so, I suppose) and crappier TV and we won't have much choice in the matter. They will deliver whatever message they want, make it impossible to FF past advertising, and filter anything they don't want you to see or hear. Sound good? Not to me. Luckily, the indie music and movie scene is strong as ever. I fear TV is lost forever with only a few exceptions. My adv ice to you is: Keep ahold of your last receiver and CD player. Don't toss your older DVD player. Someday those old CDs and DVDs won't play on your newfangled equipment because they have no DRM on them. And what's the value of that to the media giants? Make sure you have an old copy of Windows or MacOS with no DRM crap built in. Linux users will never have to worry. Until it is legislated out of existence, that is.
