Jay-Z, it's time to rise up!

What the RIAA doesn’t have an answer for…

When Napster came under attack from the recording industry, the impact to the peer to peer user base was that they disbursed to multiple different Napster-esque application. Instead of learning about the piracy problem and working with software designers to figure out a solution, the corporate lawyers thought they could scare everyone into submission.

Unfortunately, these types of internet users (a) don’t scare easily, (2) are smart, and (3) don’t appreciate big business complaining they don’t have enough money.

With today’s Supreme Court ruling, makers of software with the intention of peer to peer file sharing can be held liable for the actions of their end users. Yet again, the recording industry has smashed any kind of formal structure they could work with.


All during this time – even before Napster, NNTP (aka newsgroups) has been quietly growing and evolving. Newsgroups predate even the internet. It is the original file sharing system, and, no, it wasn’t designed to share music files. Heck, CD’s for music wasn’t even invented then.

So, newsgroups can’t be caught with the intended purpose issue.

I’m sure the RIAA is hard at work to figure this one out.

But as sure as night follows day, the hackers will work to foil the RIAA efforts, the RIAA lawyers will battle back.

One day the artists will realize that with the internet, they don’t need the recording industry’s resources for distribution.

Come on, Jay-Z. You’ve mastered the rap word. Now, revolutionize the music world. Just the artist and the listener.

PS – I have never downloaded a file illegally. I will tell you that this excuse that record industry revenues are down because of P to P networks is bogus. The recording industry has tried to apply big business tactics to the creative process. And that will never work in the long run.