Death, taxes, and the RIAA
dan tynan on Nov 20 2008 at 9:55 am | Filed under: Computerworld, Copyrights and wrongs, DMCA Madness, Music, politics
Your tax dollars are not only saving billionaire bankers from their own bad habits, they’re also helping to bail out the recording industry. Does the RIAA really truly need our help? To quote Amy Winehouse, I say “no no no.”
The recording industry is doing the Tennessee Waltz right now, thanks to a bill recently signed by Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen that commits nearly $10 million of taxpayer money to fighting music piracy on state campuses.
As Jon Newton at P2Pnet points out, the recording industry not only wrote and guided this bill through the legislature, RIAA president Mitch Bainwol was there at the signing:
(That’s Bainwol with the red arrow aimed at his noggin.)
Wired’s David Kravitz notes that Tennessee will spend $9.5 million on hardware, software, and the salaries of 21 staffers whose job is to monitor campus networks for signs of illegal file swapping. Meanwhile, the state faces a $44 million budget shortfall and has been laying off teachers.
In the land where Elvis is still king, reading and writing take a back seat to riding shotgun for the record companies.
For the rest, see my Culture Crash blog.
(Photo courtesy of Jon Newton, via the Tennessee state site.)
