RIAA speaks truth, for once
In a bold statement, the Recording Industry Association of America did something it isn’t known to do often: tell it like it is.
For years, the RIAA has earned bad press and a bad reputation along with it for all its attacks on average people over copyright infringement for downloading and distributing a handful of songs, while others who serve and distribute thousands of songs a day were unscathed because they simply knew how to avoid detection better. The scare tactics employed did nothing more than make the RIAA appear to be a desperate band of old men scrambling to keep things from evolving past their archaic design made simply to limit artistic freedom and line the RIAA’s board of director’s pockets with gold.
So when the chief spokesperson for the RIAA says that digital rights management is dead for music, disbelief is the first emotion that comes to mind. This is a company that has spent years trying to prevent online music distribution and keeping people in the way of purchasing compact discs for their music pleasures, preventing listeners from picking and choosing what songs were worth listening to and skipping the filler tracks.
Because of its resistance, it’s lost the opportunity for corporate evolution and the ability to keep revenue coming in by embracing the new medium.
It seems now, though, that the RIAA has resigned itself to a soon-to-be obsolete status, as artists take more control over their property and free music becomes more the norm.
Perhaps now game developers will take another look at DRM (digital rights management) and come to a similar conclusion.
Rob @ July 21, 2009