aborchers's Journal: Letter to RIAA (Sent 2003/06/12)

Dear Recording Industry Association of America:

As an Internet user, software engineer, and musician, I have followed the recent controversies over file-sharing and piracy issues and the RIAA's role in them with great interest. Until now, I have grudgingly respected your right to lobby the government and the courts for protection in the face of clearly illegal infringement of your protected works, though I have frequently disagreed with your tactics, which often amount to collective punishment of all consumers for the actions of the criminals.

I tolerated, because I had little choice, when you successfully passed the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, placing a tax on blank DATs that I use to master my own music to compensate for your losses. I railed against the DMCA, which puts chilling restrictions on the advance of academia and technology in order to bolster your outdated business models. I began to question whether it was worth giving you my money when I bought my first copy-protected CD. I have never used a peer-to-peer network nor downloaded a copyrighted song except from the publishers themselves because I respect the right of creative people to be compensated for and to control reproduction their work. I've learned over time that this respect is not returned however, because I now have a disc that I can't listen to in my notebook computer since you have lumped me collectively with the rip-burn-share crowd.

Today, however, I am writing to inform you that your barratry against the computer science student Jesse Jordan of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and final offer to "settle" for his $12,000 life savings (barely enough to cater your average record release party I imagine) officially goes too far. This student created a general-purpose tool for searching his campus network, and in your zeal to "send a message" to college students, you put him in position of defending *his* rights to create against your bottomless legal budget, all at a time when he was in no position to sacrifice his academic career to spend his days in court.

You have succeeded in sending a message to me. That message is that your organization is a litigious monster that does not deserve my support. I will not contribute to a group that sets itself against every technology it cannot control (I'm sure you would have lobbied to ban the Internet itself if you'd seen it coming) just because that technology might be used by criminals to infringe your copyrights, and for that reason I am declaring my intention today never to buy another recording released by an RIAA member label. This action on my part is a drop in the ocean to be sure, but I am far from alone in my disdain for your abuse of the courts and your customers, and the flood is gathering.

The next time you present Congress with your specious claims of losses due to piracy, I hope you will bear in mind that they will also have heard from me, and people like me, that another reason your sales are down is the unbelievable level of abuse and disrespect to which you subject your honest customers.

Sincerely Yours,
A.L. Borchers