Look, I agree theft is generally wrong. I know I've put out arguments that we SHOULD steal from big companies -- but those come from my Tyler Durdin side that also wants to blow up all the credit card company records rooms and terminals so we can "set the debt record back to 0" -- so I'll shelve them for now.
But, allow me to REALLY rankle your feathers. Okay, RIAA is suing folks who steal. Fine.
However, they are also going around snooping on counterfeit CD sellers. MY wife has a few RIAA trials today. You see, they hire snoopers to go out and find eeevil folks selling fake CDs around town, then they call the cops and report the crime. Cops come and arrest the guy for theft/copyright violations. RIAA then hands prosecutors, like my wife, a primer on "why counterfeit CDs are bad, mkay." Then, they insist (as the complaining witness) on guilty verdicts. You can plead the case out, but you are going to plead guilty or RIAA's lawyer (who is there observing/assisting *wink wink* prosecutors on the case) will try to force the prosecutor to push it to trial.
So, I'm sitting here reading a RIAA theft pamphlet and legal primer last night when the problem with all this hits me. They are doing this on my tax dollar. My wife's salary as a State's Attorney is paid by the good citizens of the state. The cops who make the arrest, the people who process the whole thing, the judge, even the defense attorney (public defender) are paid for by ME.
Well, let's say I was a
tad [img]graemlins/1pissed.gif[/img] bit
angry about that. Now, I know that theft is a crime, but c'mon -- my wife's court has 30-50 RIAA cases awaiting trial right now. That's a lot of tax dollars. [img]graemlins/erm.gif[/img]
While you can report a crime, and theft is a crime, a megacorp hiring nanny-snoopers to go investigating the streets of the town and yell "Hey, meester officer, over here -- look! -- a crime in progress!" and then having the megacorp attorney sit as an overseer educating prosecutors and insisting they push hard -- well, that's corporate welfare and/or oversight of our government isn't it??
Look, go sue little Suzy K. Za all you want. But, please quit enforcing your multimillion dollar copyrights on my tax dime, thank you.
One last point on RIAA enforcement: didn't they go around suing all restaurants that played CD/tape music for their diners without paying for the RIAA licenses to publicly perform music? Wasn't that an attempt to force small restauranteurs around the country to have the RIAA music piped in?
[ 09-10-2003, 01:26 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]