Inside the Minds of the RIAA
Along the lines of the last entry, one can apply the same myopic vision to today's recording industry.
They are, like our government, treating symptoms of a problem whilst totally ignoring the fundamental nature of the situation. Instead of spending millions on lawyers and, frankly, giving themselves a negative image among their consumers, they should be pouring those millions into making music more accessible to the people. They should be developing new means to deliver the entire music experience.
Instead, the state of the art in music distribution technology was apparently reached twenty years ago with the advent of the Compact Disc. We have seen no significant effort to improve upon this mechanism for two decades. Instead, we have seen the wallets of record label executives get fatter and fatter while artists, rather than the music, became the product.
In fact, music distribution has taken many steps backward in those two decades. A two hour long DVD with innovative special effects and a cast of hundreds plus crew of thousands, with added bonus materials like the making of documentary, audio commentary, historical background, etc., costs less than a plain jane CD these days.
RIAA, the reason you're losing money is not because people are stealing your product. It's because your product is not a good value. The consumers are voting with their dollars, and they're sending you a message: get with the times or die. Spend your money, which was given to you by consumers who worked very hard for it, on improving your product instead of persecuting those same consumers.