WHY I SUPPORT THE RIAA AND THEIR STANCE ON PIRACY

If you had an idea and wanted to make money off of that idea, got it trademarked and protected, would you want someone stealing your idea and coming up with something similar or giving it away it for free? Copyright laws were enacted to protect the intellectual property rights of artists, authors, poets, and music artists. If you don't understand that, then maybe you don't need to be writing anything that pertains to copyright laws.


The music industry’s implosion has become a cause that even the federal government can't ignore because the same issue – unfettered exchange of Internet files – has bled into the movie and publishing industries. Now any intellectual property that can be digitized can also be shared/stolen/cannabalized within seconds of hitting the Internet, and multibillion-dollar businesses -- most of them with roots firmly planted in the pre-digital 20th Century -- are crying foul.

Consumers complain but truly don't know what it takes to put together an album, and the hard work that goes into it, only to see some greedy individual sell your family's mortgage, car note, and your kid's college education down the drain. Simple and plain it is a way to earn money, and if that is taken away from the artists what reason do they have to make music, write a book, paint a picture??

I've been a music professional for over 20 years, and I get tired of the old blame the RIAA game. They are a union paid to protect the rights of artists, in as much the same way the UAW protects auto workers, the Teamsters protect truck drivers, the Service Employees International Union protects the rights of hospital and healthcare workers, the United Steelworkers protects the rights of women steelworkers, and the AFL-CIO union movement represents 12.2 million members, including 3.2 million members in Working America, who are teachers and miners, firefighters and farm workers, bakers and engineers, pilots and public employees, doctors and nurses, painters and plumbers—and more.

If you want intellectual content pay for it and stop griping about not getting it for free.