RIAA Isn’t Trying to Win a Popularity Contest (Maybe it Should Consider Trying)

Last week, the Recording Industry Association of America extricated its foot from another pile of dog do, this time after including details about personal files not related to music files that a U.S. Army sargeant is accused of illegally sharing on his computer.

Hey, maybe if we show that he has porn on his computer, he’ll be too embarrassed to fight us!

Here’s a note about it in Ars Technica. Watching the RIAA lurch from one unpopular lawsuit to another, it’s easy to believe that they’re really stupid.

Well, I happen to think they ARE really stupid, but that doesn’t mean their tactics are should never be used. When you are battling on behalf of your industry, you sometimes have to maintain an unpopular stance, in the face of public criticism.

Look at labor unions. If they backed down every time a customer or a member of the public was inconvenienced by strike action, they would have no bargaining power.

Look at governments. If they never said no to a lobby group, they would nickel and dime themselves out of their ability to take effective action on key issues.

But most unions and governments have more class and tact than the RIAA. It’s as if the music companies spent months with focus groups, developing a strategy most likely to piss off and alienate the demographic that is most likely to purchase their products. How else could they have arrived at such  a gross caricature that embodies everything their customers hate?

There is a time and a place to take a hard stance. To remain firm in the face of negative publicity. To stand by your values.

But when your values pit massive corporations against high school kids, single moms and G.I.s, you have to wonder about the underlying strategy.

Can they really be that stupid, for that long?

Photo by Sirimo.

Tags: riaa, lawsuits, legal, battles, music sharing, porn, business, marketing, strategy, public opinion, stupidity, public relations, sales