Yahoo forces RIAA staff cutbacks...

Found on Blog Maverick on Tuesday, 17 May 2005
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Not that i ever want to see anyone lose their jobs, but it will be nice for music label employees to have all the subsidies they are paying the RIAA go to their artists. (Yes you were supposed to laugh at that one )

As Barry Ritholz smartly pointed out in his blog, the introduction of Yahoo's Music Unlimited Service sets the new marketvalue for all the music you can download in a month... 5 bucks.

The RIAA can no longer claim that students who are downloading music are costing them thousands of dollars each. They cant claim much of anything actually. In essence, Yahoo just turned possession of a controlled music substance into a misdemeanor. Payable by a $5 per month fine.

Of course, RIAA staffers wont go quietly into the night. They will continue to scream loud and hard about evils of illegal downloading. The question is, will they move the money they are currently spending on court cases and filing suit, towards promoting the new subscription services that are available. Particularly Yahoo's dirt cheap service.

Just like many others (mostly lawyers, newspapers and the industry), he mixes up two entirely different things: download and upload. The download is not the problem. The upload is. However... if Yahoo should decide to create a private P2P network, things would change. On the other hand, I think Napster does that (never used it myself). But really... when I can get unlimited download for just $5, why can the industry sue for millions? Just because of the upload? 99.99% of P2P users use the software to download; upload is a "required evil" for them.