F$@& the **AA

[**AA insanity]
"Please make us legal monopolies. We won't abuse our power, we promise!"

"VCRs/Jukeboxes/Radios/TiVo/RiVo will destroy our business model, and should therefore be illegal!"
[/insanity]

I've really had about enough of the RIAA, MPAA, and other large media interests. This is a weird rant for me to make, but I just can't help it. Before too long, we're only going to get one point of view on any issue, spoon fed to us at the time and manner deemed most profitable by our overlords. This is the exact opposite of what should be happening in the so-called Information Age.

Companies should, obviously, be able to protect their copyrights. However...
The NFL does not have a natural, god-given right to enforce telecast blackouts - it's nothing more than one particular way of doing business given the available technology. Likewise, The RIAA and MPAA do not have the natural right to cripple distributed media with DRM and force consumers to abide by it - it's just one particular way of selling recorded entertainment.

The RIAA/MPAA and their ilk are dinosaurs. If they're smart, they'll adapt like they did after losing the Betamax case in the U.S. Supreme Court. If they maintain their current line of thinking, they'll die a painful death and grassroots/indie creativity will flourish. If they're lucky, they'll defeat innovation and consumer rights, and leave us in a wasteland of $15 Britney Spears CDs that can't be copied to an mp3 player to use at the gym and 5,473 channels of CNN People that we can't record while we're at our kids' soccer games.

Many others have articulated these feelings better than I, but what kind of rant would this be if it was well thought out, clear, and concise?