Battleangel

The RIAA et. al. are certainly in the spotlight. Over the last couple of days we have been greeted by headlines such as this (links go to CDFreaks):

Recording Industry files 261 lawsuits against file sharers
Tune swappers scoff at RIAA lawsuits
Study shows file swappers buy more music
12-Year-Old girl sued for music downloading
Mother of 12 year old settles with RIAA to avoid costly legal battle
Record Execs are changing there tune about file-sharing and sales

Good old scare tactics. Instills fear but rarely solves what is was supposed to solve. Some sort of aversive conditioning if you want it in professional terms. The only problem with a.c. is that it in fact is a crappy way of learning. The opposite would render better results and prevent the setbacks that are imminent. It’s like if you have a dog and it keeps chasing the mailman with malice.

So you start punishing the dog by screaming at it, acting aggressive and even physical abuse. The end result will be that an anxious wreck of an animal that probably wont chase the mailman (at least not when you are around) but on the other hand will bite you in the ass as soon as you turn around. At any rate it will not be able to perform its function as a domesticated animal and you are in fact worse off than you were to begin with.
The trick is either being lenient and trying a form of positive conditioning until it quits or figuring out why the dog chases the mailman and solve that problem. Either solution requires an EFFORT of course.

The point of this little story is that conditioned file swappers are of course the same customers who buy records. Duh. Hurt them over and over and they might be ten times the pain-in-the-ass that they are today. If you can’t get them to perform their function (buying records) anyway, than what is all of this going to accomplish? Just proving a point? Plus people are a bit more complicated than dogs. Among other things they identify with and bind to their peers, sympathizing with their kin even in abstract matters. It’s very easy to make enemies and almost impossible to get rid of them. Chances are this will never work. Ever.

Maybe it’s time we turn our attention to the reasons for this problem. One being the highly competitive capitalism of the USA. But that is an entirely different discussion.