An impotent media
So, I was reading today about the RIAA's latest volley in the war between people and property. They have introduced a Boy Scout badge for "Intellectual Property". A scout can earn this badge by sitting through one of their indoctrination videos.

I tried to imagine what the badge must look like. I figure it should be a phonograph. Linked directly to recorded music, and at the same time, linked to an antiquated, barely used, out of date format. Yes, that should do nicely.

Quick on the heels of that, though I realized just how impotent media has become recently. The issue of internet music sharing is a perfect opportunity with which to test the media. You know how people argue about the enormous swaying power of the media, how it can mold people's minds; Wag the Dog stuff. They say that the media can make or break a political candidate by affecting the unwashed masses.

Now here is a situation where the media truly feels (mistakenly) that they are under attack. They seem to fight this battle with every tool and weapon in their arsenal. They have used psychological warfare to get us to refer to file swappers as "Pirates". They have expose's, press releases, and short commercials dedicated to convincing us that file swapping just isn't "hip" (don't copy that floppy!). They have studies that show how file swapping is costing them billions of dollars (while all independant studies show that the studios are making more money than ever). They have created their own paramilitary enforcement wing, to raid duplication labs, and storm citizens houses. They have sued thousands of citizens, and settled almost all out of court (not one successful lawsuit yet). And today, they announced a badge that coerces Scouts to agree with their position.

But let's look at the results. After all, we're trying to test what the incredible might of the media can do to a single issue. The companies representing the RIAA/MPAA are no less important names than BMG, Apple, Virgin, Columbia, Time/Warner Brothers, Buena Vista, Sony, MGM, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and United Artists. These are the guys who control 90% of all TV and Radio in America. They make and break candidates based on their endorsements. So, surely one small issue like "We want this to be illegal, and we want to arrest everyone who does it" should be a relatively easy thing. A "slam dunk" to use the Bush administration terms.

But here's the thing: there has been more music, movie, TV, and video game piracy every year since they started this campaign. The lawsuits slowed down file swapping temporarily, but when people did the math, and found out that they were more likely to win the lottery than get sued by the RIAA, those people started coming back to "the scene". As the lawsuits made online music swappers more afraid of the RIAA, they learned more about privacy, and they found alternate paths. When one BitTorrent site was taken down, the others saw a sudden explosion in patronage. People move their allegience from one file-swapping format to another (Kazaa today, BitTorrent tomorrow, IRC the next day), which seriously messes with all attempts to track them. Because the population shifts, the RIAA points to a format with decreasing patronage and says, "There, see! The people are running scared now!"

But remember: these are the people who make or break public policy. Remember the incredible power? Remember the earth-shattering potency of their work? It's been almost a decade now, and they haven't managed to even cut down on this "piracy".

From the very beginning of this war, people have been asked why they do this. The answers have been universally the same:
1) Media costs too much.
2) Media isn't portable enough.
3) Artists don't get the money anyway.

The RIAA/MPAA chose to counter those complaints with lawsuits, slander, name-calling, and privacy attacks. They tried to raise prices (to pay for all the piracy, don't you know). They made the media less portable (just try to make a backup of an Apple ITunes song on a new computer), and they forced the artists to speak out against file-swapping, even over the artist's objections.

Now people hate them, artists hate them, they are losing the battle worse every day, and each thrust they make in this battle ends up as a punchline on Slashdot.

These were the titans! They had all the power! How is it possible that they did not utterly humble the file-swappers?

Simple. People online, in general, know what they're doing. When a person is introduced to the internet, the first thing that hits them is how incredibly free everything is. News, Weather, Sports, Opinion, there are sites out there for every possible interest, catering to every possible fetish, without worry about governmental strictures.

Once they are acclimatized to that environment, they suddenly see stories about how a company is tracking people online, how they are raiding houses, ransacking privacy, and attacking their own customers. When faced with the ultimate freedom of the internet, these attacks seem like an affront on their own personal privacy. Every single person feels insulted, violated, and angry.

One of the most common arguments for the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that the Japanese would never surrender. Conservatives shake their heads and say, "If we hadn't dropped the bombs, every single citizen would have fought to the death to bring down America. We did it for peace, to save both sides."

This is the same situation. Every single person who logs on to the internet will feel like they are being spied on and attacked by these huge, American conglomerates. And they will fight, to a man, against these attacks.

Following that logic, the only sensible thing that the RIAA/MPAA can do is to Nuke the Internet. Take it out, switch it off, for our own good. You know, like China does with it's Internet.

When the smoke clears, they will be able to count on the goodwill of the returning customers, much like the goodwill that America enjoys from the descendants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- posted by BrandG @ 10:04 PM