A terrorist doesn't exist to kill people or destroy property. They may not be concerned with the death and destruction they cause, but these, to a terrorist, are merely collateral. If they target specific people or properties, we can easily call them assasins or arsonists.
A terrorist lives to keep others in fear.
The 9/11 terrorists didn't care one way or another about the lives they took, families they ruined, or buildings and planes they destroyed. They cared that they believed that they had been wronged. And they cared that Americans would live from then on with the fear that death and destruction could happen to them at any time.
The RIAA and MPAA aren't killing anybody. But they are making a significant percentage of the population live in fear, simply because these people are listening to songs or watching movies.
These lobbying organizations have gamed the system. They have, through acts like the DMCA, distorted the intent of the framers of the US Constitution regarding Copyright. Copyright infringment is a federal offense, but the RIAA has not been able to show cause for the federal government to take a single person to task for trading a file on the internet.
Those of us who derive revenue from intellectual property want to continue to derive revenue - show us the money. The recent history of the music and movie industries has been to deprive the creative sources that provide the actual work of proper compensation, all the while directing revenue up up up the food chain, making these industries more and more dependent on blockbuster hits and less able to support the broad creative impluse that feeds this commerce.
The consumer has grown up seeing that music and movies are seemingly free - radio and TV, for example, have provided entertainment at only the cost of the hardware to receive and display it and at the cost of increased consumer-good prices. Most people don't understand this any more than they understand the fine points of intellectual property law or performance rights society royalty distribution, they just know the stuff keeps flowing toward them.
The entertainment industry, instead of understanding and embracing the opportunites presented by new technology, has run from the internet like their ancestors ran from the giant beast that was eating the sun, which we now calmly understand is simply an eclipse.
The entertainment industry, much like our current administration in Washington, has forgotten, rejected or ignored the simple use of law enforcement to stop crimes against their industry. Instead, they rely on civil suits and a massive PR machine (lawyers and marketers paid-for by you and me by ever-increasing entertainment-product costs) to terrorize people into supporting the current regime, a culture of greed that is a top-heavy and failed business model. A certain percentage of the population will be cowed into obeying. A few executives will be able to afford a nicer car for their spoiled kid or a longer fall vacation on a warm sea, but our culture will suffer.
These industries are releasing fewer and fewer works, yet more and more works are being created. As they release fewer works, they complain that they are not selling as much as they used to! Incredible on their part, but probably not incredible that some people will fall for it.
Instead of fear, RIAA, why not let your member companies sell music?
