Fanlib and RIAA

[anarchicq.livejournal.com]

Ok, so it's been discovered that Fanlib has connections with the RIAA.

I ask the questions on behalf of all the little Fanlib users to delusioned by the validation of TPTB to actually research and think.

Who exactly is the RIAA?

Why does Fanlib's connection with them matter?

Comments

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

I've posted a reply (http://community.livejournal.com/life_wo_fanlib/4381.html?thread=40221#t40221) that includes additional sources below, in case it's useful.

Also, you may want to read Henry Jenkins's post (http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/05/transforming_fan_culture_into.html#comments) on the whole issue, if you haven't seen it already. He's a media studies scholar (MIT) and his article includes useful descriptions of what fans are afraid might happen if the FanLib business model did (as seems likely) provoke a lawsuit by some irate copyright-holder.

Apologies if any of this is redundant!

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

And if I had to sum up (::wince::), what I'd say is: I'm afraid that Hilary Rosen and her buds, who pioneered the RIAA's entire strategy to criminalize Fair Use, are helping the big media companies like CBS to apply that strategy to media fans by (a) setting us up for individual prosecution, for whenever they feel like coming after us and (b) building corporate-controlled fan sites so that they can eventually both legislate and prosecute the fan-controlled sites as illegal. (Henry Jenkins's article explains this better.)

They don't own us yet. They're trying to.