The Recording Industry of Association of America a.k.a. RIAA is no stranger to making life difficult for you and I. Who are these people? In short, “The Recording Industry Association of America is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry. Its mission is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members’ creative and financial vitality.

Let us review the success of RIAA:

• 1993 - RIAA Sues 261, Including 12 Year Old Girl

• 2002 - RIAA Sues Backbones: The RIAA taking aim at Internet Service Providers as part of its battle

• 2007 - RIAA Launches New Initiatives Targeting Campus Music Theft

In the process, RIAA successfully sued a little program called Napster? For a brief highlighted factoids by the EFF, please read Doctor Recommended.

For the past decade, I believe that the digital landscape had been mapped out and led by the so-called PIRATES. Whilst, RIAA strongly believes that Digital Rights Management (DRM) opens up new business model - of which, TechDirt recently wrote a great article providing An Economic Explanation For Why DRM cannot Open Up New Business Model Opportunities - online paid music services, such as AllofMp3.com flourished. Why I say flourish? Because not only is AllofMp3.com beating the odds by providing a viable for-profit music downloading service but warrant to be good enough for a USD$1.65 trillion lawsuit courtesy of RIAA.

Ars Technica wrote a great article last year on RIAA crying wolf all the way to the bank illustrating that despite a decreasing CD sales and shrinking profits, the record labels are still doing quite well.

How is RIAA combating/fostering this new digital landscape? Instead of embracing this landscape to further explore different music experience, RIAA has gone all protective, and I dare say, without fully understanding the current music consumption. (And yes, I am not a big fan of fancy consulting reports or surveys - because Statistics are lies and can be manipulated)…not only is RIAA trying to spoil our music experience, but is also trying to petition for a lower Songwriter Royalties - an exercise to slash cost??

Ken Fisher at Ars Technica wrote How the RIAA view its customers: completely untrustworthy…not only do I fully agree with him, but applaud on the efforts of online services such as Amie Street, creating a space where artists can promote themselves; and music discovery websites such as LastFM, Pandora etc.

And it would appear the RIAA has cast their sight on their next target, the Internet Radio stations. Unsatisfied that they did not completely eradicate the Internet Radio stations (read here in 2001, here in 2002 in the early 2000s - plus probably having the green-eyed monster since Internet Radio stations beat the odds and are making money, the RIAA has recently imposed a penalty or issued a revised new royalty rates. For more info, please do not hesitate to read here, and more importantly, Save the Internet Radio.