RIAA goes after actual pirates;Latin Music

[joepic]

A recent government report looked at the state of intellectual property rights around the world and threw several countries into the Piracy Hall of Shame. But piracy isn't just a foreign delicacy; it's alive and well here in the US. The RIAA has launched a new crackdown on home-grown music pirates—but this time, we're not talking about dead grandmothers who like to engage in a little file-swapping.

The new RIAA campaign instead targets actual pirates, the ones with peg legs, eye patches, and commerical CD stampers. The RIAA's new campaign focuses on 12 US cities that were selected "based on market surveys, earlier raids and industry reviews of sales data suggesting lost sales during the past five years." Who gets to bask in the glow of the RIAA's newly-focused attention? Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, San Diego, and San Francisco. (Which one of these is not like the others? If you said "Providence," you win a gold star.)

There's no indication that the RIAA has decided to stop suing file-swappers, but the new program focuses more on commercial operations, many of which are associated with or run by organized crime syndicates. We've heaped our fair share of criticism on the music business over the years, so it's only fair to give them credit for this move in the right direction. Teenage file-swappers aren't the threat to the music business that they're usually made out to be; after all, they go out and buy CDs after hearing new music obtained from peer-to-peer services. The same can't be said for commercial pirates.

And apparently, there's nothing these pirates like better than a Latin beat. 40 percent of all counterfeit discs seized last year were Latin music, but it's not clear whether this number represents a large Latin-loving audience looking for cheap music, or whether it's a byproduct of the RIAA's attention. Latin CDs account for only six percent of the market in the US, but pirated Latin music has been a special concern since at least 1999, when the RIAA issued a press release in which it claimed to have devoted "more than 70% of non-Internet investigations to Latin music piracy. As a result, nearly 50% of all seized illegal music was Latin product."

The current head of anti-piracy operations at the RIAA is Brad Buckles, who happens to be a former chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. His access to governmental law enforcement power should help the RIAA wage a more effective campaign, since the trade group has no enforcement powers of its own (though you can bet they wouldn't object to having them). At least this campaign appears to be pointed in the right direction.

[bendixG15]

(

Which one of these is not like the others? If you said "Providence," you win a gold star.)

You obviously don't know anything about Providence.

[oldfart13]

I watched a trade advisor in Canada squirm on national TV when he didn't want to say (but eventually did) that the biggest pirate goods country in the world was China. Seems the government has a problem with looking the other way when it comes to that country but also doesn't try to impede the flow of goods from that part of the world. Seeing the uncomfortable look on the poor guy's face when asked all these tough questions by the interviewer sure made me smile...

[Cobra]

Just moving this to the Off-Topic forum - it isn't video news.

Thanks!

Cobra

[zzyzzx]

(

Which one of these is not like the others? If you said "Providence," you win a gold star.)

You obviously don't know anything about Providence.