All Music Lovers Are Now Criminals

In their relentless quest to punish their own customers, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued college students for downloading and sharing music files as well as parents for their children's activities. But this one really hits rock bottom.

The RIAA has now sued someone for loading legally purchased CDs onto his personal computer. In Scottsdale, Arizona, Jeffrey Howell loaded his CD collection onto his PC for his own private listening. But because he also had a peer-to-peer program on his system - even though it was specifically set up not to share anything - the RIAA sued him anyway.

The rationale is that simply having the program was the legal equivalent of sharing all the music on his PC whether or not he was actually doing it. It's like a bank teller getting arrested because he was on duty when someone else robbed the bank.

Not only does this fly in the face of the organization's own FAQ (which clearly says, "record companies have never objected to someone making a copy of a CD for their own personal use, we want fans to enjoy the music they bought legally") it defies all logic and common sense. Think about it - the RIAA is actually saying that anyone who buys a CD from Amazon or Best Buy and puts it onto their computer is breaking the law. And let's not even get into the possibility of suing everyone who owns an iPod or other music player.

Every time the RIAA gets into a snit over something like this, they drive away more of their customers. Copy-protection on the CDs broke some older CD players and computers. Other CDs couldn't be played at all. CDs are loaded with one or two genuinely good songs while the rest is filler. Corporate record studios pump out mass-produced tripe which hews to very narrow tastes while refusing to step outside those brightly-defined lines.

And they wonder why their sales figures keep going down.

This isn't going to help things. With the RIAA seemingly determined to make every music lover into a criminal by default, it wouldn't surprise me if more and more people simply give up on buying CDs altogether and just download what they want. After all, to quote Joey from Friends, "If you're going to do something wrong, do it right!"

The Ghouls Come Out

With yesterday's assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, some commentators wasted no time using the rising chaos to handicap the American presidential race, saying it would be good for this candidate or that candidate. But Fox's John Gibson really has to take the cake. In the "My Word" segment of his TV show last night, he used Bhutto's death to indulge in some good old-fashioned exploitation:

So even though today's carnage was on the other side of the planet, it really did strike close to home, and all Americans should be worried about what happens now. The way Americans can deal with this crisis is to carefully consider their vote. This election is about the same issue the last election was about... the War on Terror. It's not about health care, and as important as our economy is, it's not about that either. We need someone who has the strength of mind and the resolve to see through an ugly fight that will have to be fought. It's not a choice. The people who killed Bhutto would kill you too, and if the next president gives them a chance, they will do it.

Translation: Vote Republican or else.

Gibson obviously thinks that after six solid years of fear-mongering, we still have some terror left in us. But even Republican voters have caught on: Rudy Giuliani's campaign, based solely on 9/11, is sinking fast. Tom Tancredo, who cloaked his nativist bigotry in 9/11 fear, dropped out, and other GOP fear-and-loathing candidates are likewise spinning their wheels.

Expect the rhetoric to get more shrill and desperate as the election campaign grinds on. It's the only way the GOP can possibly win.