Musings from Brian J. Noggle

This Cannot Stand

So the Recording Industry Association of America is dressing up like law enforcement officials and conducting raids. This, my friends, cannot stand.

Though no guns were brandished, the bust from a distance looked like classic LAPD, DEA or FBI work, right down to the black "raid" vests the unit members wore. The fact that their yellow stenciled lettering read "RIAA" instead of something from an official law-enforcement agency was lost on 55-year-old parking-lot attendant Ceasar Borrayo.

The Recording Industry Association of America is taking it to the streets.

. . .

"They said they were police from the recording industry or something, and next time they’d take me away in handcuffs," he said through an interpreter. Borrayo says he has no way of knowing if the records, with titles like Como Te Extraño Vol. IV — Musica de los 70’s y 80’s, are illegal, but he thought better of arguing the point.

The RIAA acknowledges it all — except the notion that its staff presents itself as police. Yes, they may all be ex-P.D. Yes, they wear cop-style clothes and carry official-looking IDs. But if they leave people like Borrayo with the impression that they’re actual law enforcement, that’s a mistake.

Oh, ramsexcrement. The RIAA is playing cops, although it's using real ex-cops to do so. Win/win. Ex-cops get to pretend like they still have some sort of power--and don't you believe for a moment they lack an attitude--and the RIAA gets to harrass citizens.

Meanwhile, our country steps slightly toward that dystopian future where corporations have their own cops out there enforcing the laws and shooting them up with bad guys. These guys with RIAA stitched onto their backs aren't ED-209, but if this travesty is left unchecked, soon the Business Software Alliance, the Mystery Writers of America, and every other person whose copyright might be infringed will be fielding their own set of jackbooted thugs to menace and harrass society. So who loses?

The citizens, of course, because its our right to be freed from persecution, and let's face it, the RIAA's persecuting and not prosecuting when its minions "raid".
True law enforcement loses because the weight of its actions are diluted by the other thugz and playaz conducting their own raids. If a citizen's got a bunch of surly looking men with dark vests bearing an acronym ending in A standing on his property and acting menacing, he's got to wonder if they're surly looking men with dark vests bearing an acronym ending in A who are illegal trespassers whom he can shoot or if they're surly looking men with dark vests bearing an acronym ending in A bearing legal warrants. Does law enforcement win whenever it puts someone who guesses wrong into the ground? Hardly.

It's encouraging to see that the law might not take too lightly anyone antitrusting its monopoly on power:

But if an anti-piracy team crossed the line between looking like cops and implying or telling vendors that they are cops, the Los Angeles Police Department would take a pretty dim view, said LAPD spokesman Jason Lee.

I hope we see it loudly and soon. The RIAA, with all its subpoenas and lawsuits and whatnot has crossed the final line by adding physical intimidation and blatant deception to its playlist.

(Link seen on /. or Techdirt or both.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:25 PM