No Rock And Roll Fun

OF COURSE, THIS WOULD PLEASE THE RIAA: A diverting tale of a musician attmepting to sell his own music only to be told by Ebay he can't, because he's violating his own copyright doing so provides another example of how the RIAA and Hollywood Studio axis of "me, all" is crushing the life out of the creative sectors beyond their snaky little grasps. Of course, although the guy involved feels like Ebay is picking on him, it's not, really. You can't really expect that a company like Ebay with its millions of listings and tiny staff are going to be able to process each advert by hand, and, rather than be kicked again and again by the RIAA, they've erred on the side of caution and set up a script which sees the words "CD-R", panics, and then delists the item automatically. The serious issue that's pointed up is that - just as the boot of copyright trampling down on filesharing doesn't just stop illegal and morally grey downloads, but chokes off everyone's rights to use the system for anything, because EBay live in craven fear of Hilary Rosen, they're turning away people who have a legitimate use for their network.
Of course, the RIAA could approach now and talk to ebay about a way round this to allow legitimate independent labels to auction their own music if they want to. But we bet they don't. Because, almost by accident, the big labels have found another way of frustrating acts who don't want to sign up with them.