I'm sure most of the people in the States have some knowledge of MGM Vs Grokster basically a challenge between the recording industry and the technology industry. I'm quite biased against the RIAA cos I think the music executives are a bunch of heavy-handed, arrogant, greedy people. Yes, this probably is a very very sweeping statement and they have a case, but who wants to root for the favourites? Everybody would rather cheer on the underdog that fights the good fight than the incumbent that takes everything for granted.

And now it seems that there is another measure that the recording industry is trying to take to clamp down on the masses.

It's really quite disgusting actually I think. How they expect to control the masses listening/purchasing habits just to fund their tunnel-visioned industry. I agree that people (myself included) download songs from the internet without paying for them. And morally, that's wrong. However how can they expect to emerge from this with a shining image by doing all these actions? First they sue people, regardless of income and age (like the teenages who Kazaa can pay a grand for every song they downloaded) then now they try to impose themselves on after-sales activities? The people who download may be in the wrong, but from their actions they don't come across as angels. Not by a far shot. It's more of a "If we can't get rich from the (mostly) shitty stuff we produce, we'll just sue the cash out of everyone poor bastard that has every downloaded something from us, even if they are just kids who haven't realised that they are just downloading routinely, thoughtlessly manufactured tunes."

Well, don't need to take it from me. Who am I but some stupid dude with too much time on my hands. Why not take a listen to Mark Cuban, co-owner of HDnet and owner of the Dallas Mavericks?

Haha. Linkage overload. I couldn't really be bothered to arrange the links in chronological order, sorry about that. And Mark Cuban has a reputation for being unconventional (as I'm sure you'll find out if you read more entries) so take what he says with a pinch of salt. But hey, the guy has a NBA team and I don't, so maybe his ideas actually have something to it?