The RIAA believe student's brains aren't fully formed

Don Reisinger over at CNet's Digital Home is carrying an interview with the RIAA's spokeperson Cara Duckworth, giving her a chance to explain why a group of multinational companies feels the need to sue students to protect their industry. Some of Cara's responses are worth close inspection:

It was becoming clearer that despite cool new legal services and the ongoing educational efforts, too many students--some of music's biggest fans--were getting their music illegally and learning the wrong lessons about stealing and the law.

Hey, kids, won't you use our cool new legal services?

It might occur to you, were you in a business, to ask why it is that these Fonzie-cool services weren't enough on their own to stop people filesharing. Not the RIAA, though - they reach for lawsuits.

Not for their own sakes, though: it's a moral case. It's stealing and it's wrong. They just wanted to remind people about the law.

There had to be a deterrence factor involved so that individuals knew that along with personal consequences (i.e., viruses, spyware infiltrating hard drive) there would also be legal consequences to engaging in illegal downloading behavior.

Good lord, 2007 and they're still hoping that saying 'ooh, you might get a computer VIRUS' is going to have an effect on people's behaviour. And it's a bit rich for the RIAA to be all concerned about spyware popping up on computers, after Sony's little rootkit debacle.

The broader problem, of course, is that clearly there isn't a deterrence factor at all - the lawsuits have, by nature of their cost, been so far and few between people who share files tend to view the chances of a letter from the RIAA in the same way that people who fly think about hijacking: it'd be unpleasant, but it's hardly likely to happen.

Bringing lawsuits was by no means our first choice, but a necessary step we had to take.

It's hard to say what they were doing retaining all those lawyers if they weren't using lawsuits as a first option - perhaps they'd all come round for a game of parchesi and, since they were there...

Cara, you'll note, doesn't list what the options which were first choice were. It's probably true, though, that the lawsuits did become necessary, but only because the RIAA's wrongheaded strategy, of setting themselves at war with their customers, had no other place to go. Filesharers effectively called the RIAA's bluff, and the RIAA is left, lumbered with this unpopular, expensive, failing strategy.

Digital Home then asks why the RIAA were targeting college students:

[C]ollege students have reached a stage in life when their music habits are crystallized, and their appreciation for intellectual property has not yet reached its full development.

So, in a turnaround from everything you've ever expected, the RIAA believe that your music habits when you reach college have got to a point where they will never change again, but your ideas about stealing are "underdeveloped".

Yes, let's just look at that again: I, apparently, should never have moved on from listening to Radio 1 and playing music on tape recorders, because my musical habits would have crystalised when I was at college.

While students are embarking on law degrees all over the US despite their sense of right and wrong not having had a chance to develop yet.

It's not that the RIAA are desperately trying to shore up Warner Music. Oh, no. They're worried about all these kids who don't appreciate intellectual property:

Understanding the value of intellectual property is important to the future job market for many of these students--industries that rely on copyright protection employ more than 11 million workers nationwide and continue to grow.

So, there are 11 million people employed in a growing sector of copyrighted materials. It's not immediately apparent from those statistics that the creative industries are being threatened by on-campus piracy - indeed, it's a growth industry. Perhaps that growth is partly being fuelled by the freer exchange of ideas and information made possible by peer-to-peer networking? Maybe the RIAA should be suing the kids who refuse to use bittorrent - perhaps, you know, they could be UnAmerican.

Duckworth then gets a little odd:

While college students used to be some of music's greatest fans, unfortunately that is no longer the case. I would point you to the evidence of the extensiveness of music theft amongst college campuses from Student Monitor and other market research firms to show why we are focusing some of our efforts on universities.

Is she saying that college kids no longer like music? Or is she merely saying they listen to a lot more than they pay for? Isn't there a subtle difference between being a 'fan' of music and being a person who diligently respects intellectual property rights?

Of course, it's only a record label employee who could see music as being something you're a "fan" of in it's own right. I'm a big fan of music; I've got a tshirt with a treble clef on, and my wallpaper has little notes on it. It's like saying "people used to admire cheese". And it's only a record label employee who would think the only way you can show support for something is by paying money over.

Many of the biggest music fans I know showed their devotion to their favourite bands despite not having very much cash.

Reisinger then asks 'aren't you just bullies'? Apparently not - the problem is their marks keep squealing:

When an individual is caught illegally downloading music, it sometimes happens that the person creates a stir.

So... you're not bullies, then; it's just people complain when you try to sue them for thousands and thousands of pounds.

But if we had sat on our hands and chosen to do nothing about the piracy problem as the music industry was hemorrhaging jobs and lost sales, imagine what the extent of theft would be today and how the legal marketplace would be struggling to gain traction.

Let's imagine... it would be pretty much like today, I'd guess - the legal marketplace has developed alongside a surprisingly huge pile of unpaid downloads. Indeed, the only real difference would have been that the RIAA companies would have a few million quid they no longer have, and their reputation wouldn't be as tarnished.

Not that this RIAA spokesperson is going to admit they're failing, though:

Since we began this initiative, we've seen a P2P problem that once was growing at dizzying speeds essentially flatten out.

An interesting definition of success, then, having the problem which you set out to end not declining but "essentially flattening out".

That might also be because everyone who would like to fileshare has, by now, got on board and there's nowhere for new filesharers to come from.

So, why are you so disliked, asks Don?

Amusingly, the RIAA doesn't believe they are:

I don't agree with the loaded premise of the question. In some online quarters, there may be lots of heat about the tough stands we sometimes must take. But amongst the general public, the favorability ratings of the record industry remain as positive as ever and surpass other forms of entertainment like movie or TV studios.

Aha - so the RIAA is only disliked amongst people who talk about them and - if you confuse 'a cartel of major labels engaged in legal action against young people' with 'the music industry', then apparently "favourability ratings" (whatever they are) show that they're, you know, popular.

Let it be said--the RIAA is much more than lawsuits.

Oh, yes. There's the patronising public 'education' campaigns and the lobbying, too.