Takes One To Know One

Too Much Free Time

from the i-know-you-are-but-what-am-i dept

The RIAA says commercial piracy is increasingly being dominated by organized crime syndicates that are establishing low-margin, high-volume businesses. So the RIAA has responded by stepping up the efforts of its “investigators” — which sounds like a nice way to describe their private police force — to seize raw materials like blank CDs and CD burners, joining their brothers in arms at the MPAA’s efforts, which have resulted in the raid of at least one legitimate business. Forget permission to innovate, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the RIAA try to ban blank CDs, or at least put a prohibitive tax on them. Interesting, though, to see the RIAA call out organized crime now, after appropriating its traditional business model of fear and intimidation, instead of just labeling the vast majority of consumers as thieves and criminals.