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I've posted about this before. Basically, what RIAA does is put people on the streets who find folks selling bootlegs, and they grab a cop to charge them with copyright violations. When the case comes to misdemeanor court, a RIAA lawyer confers with prosecutors (my wife) about the case.
To the extent they do their "policing" differently elsewhere, including having RIAA personnel issue pink-slip "violation" papers, if that occurred it would basically be a ruse to scare the people into compliance.
Because bootlegging is an obvious copyright infringement, I don't oppose RIAA trying to police it. However, something inside me is bothered by having RIAA attorneys go confer with prosecutors regarding the case. In essence, our tax dollars are funding the prosecution of these cases on behalf of RIAA in those instances. When the victim of the crime is a beat-up citizen, it doesn't bother me that our tax dollars fund the state's correcting of the wrong. But, when multi-million dollar corps. are doing it, I wish they'd at least fund the prosecution, so our tax dollars aren't helping their profit margins.
Otherwise, I don't really have a problem with it. Bootlegging CDs is illegal, and a bit detestable.
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