Because Everyone Loves to Hear Funny RIAA Stories...

Our dear beloved RIAA loves to subpoena people, and it's funny to laugh at them when they do things like subpoena a 65 year old grandmother.

So how about this week, when during the case of UMG v. Lindor where the case is against the mother, the RIAA has recently demanded to search the desktop computer of her son, who lives 4 miles away from her. He is being brought into the case simply because he has been defending his mother in court.

Wouldn't it be weird if that was the way the law worked? If you simply had to say, "I don't think that she did anything wrong," and they could seize YOUR computer, without any evidence or anything besides the fact that they assume since you're defending it you must be doing it also.

If the police called everyone a murderer and then went into houses to search for knives, the whole world would be up in arms. So what makes the RIAA think that it would be okay for them to call him an infringer.

In addition, the RIAA went so far as to call the son's employer about it. Hmmm, maybe I could see justification if it was the accused mother whose employer was getting a phone call, but the son? What will that accomplish, asking if he is a bad employee? Asking if he ever talks about all of the music he downloads, while he's at work socializing? Seems to me all that would do is give the employer a bad outlook on his employee and accomplish nothing.

You have a multi-billion dollar cartel suing unemployed people, disabled people, housewives, single mothers, home healthcare aids, and basically all kinds of people who have no resources whatsoever to withstand these litigations. And due to the adversary system of justice, the RIAA will be successful in rewriting copyright law, if the world at large, and the technological community in particular, don't fight back and help these people fighting these fights.

I have mixed feelings about the RIAA, because like the radio industry, I think they need to take a serious look at what they're doing right now.