RIAA Mishandles Downloading Lawsuits

Over the last six years, the war between music-downloading consumers and the Recording Industry Association of America has become a stalemate. The RIAA threatens to sue consumers to ward off illegal downloading, but illegal music downloads still outnumber legal downloads by a 40-1 ratio.

Apparently, the RIAA is not reaching its publics about illegal downloads, despite its staunch stance against pirating. People continue to illegally download regardless of facing a potential lawsuit.

I blame this negative attitude toward the RIAA due to its mishandling of the illegal downloads. Just look at this case of the RIAA suing Tanya Andersen, a single mom living in Portland.

(Photo of Tanya Andersen courtesy of BusinessWeek)

Four years ago, Andersen and the RIAA began a bitter battle over illegal downloading. The industry group said that Andersen had to pay them about $4,000 dollars, or she would go bankrupt from court fees. Andersen contended that she never downloaded illegally. Eventually, the RIAA dropped the lawsuit due to lack of evidence.

Anderson fought the RIAA for three years; now, she putting legal pressure on them. She has filed a lawsuit against the RIAA for conspiracy laws and invasion of personal privacy. Her confrontation with the RIAA has produced a number of problems for the trade industry group, including that fact that the RIAA may have misidentified illegal music consumers up to 20 percent of the time.

For this case involving Andersen, the RIAA or the record labels wished not to comment. Why the secrecy? Why the rejection of journalists? By neglecting to respond to people, the RIAA is engaging in only one-way communication with its publics. To make matters worse, the RIAA forces its message of “piracy is bad news” upon people without any room for discussion.

To earn respect among people, the RIAA must steer away from guilt-tripping people and engage in more earnest arguments. Until then, people will continue abuse digital piracy and bypass buying music.

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