Dylan Schiemann

Several years ago, I stopped buying CDs from major label, RIAA affiliated artists. This happened the day the RIAA sued Napster, signalling the desire of the music industry to litigate rather than adapt (and 99 cents per download with DRM several years later is not adapting). I used to purchase over $1000 per year of music. Today I purchase none, except for the occasional small independent artist that I take a liking to. This past week, the MPAA started an illegal crackdown on BitTorrent providers. These sites were not offering music, but rather files that allow various people to connect with one another. I believe this may be the end of my roughly $1000 per year committment to main stream movies, though I was already considering this action because of several factors. It seems that companies just don’t get that I want content and data on my terms. What this means is that, if I buy a movie, I want to be able to watch it the way I want, without having to watch FBI warning messages or gratuitous introductions. I do not want previews on a movie that I suposedly own, at least not something I have to skip every time I want to watch it. I do not want to have to purchase a movie more than once, and by this I mean two things: quality and longevity. The durability of DVDs is not great, as many disks skip the first time they are watched. And longevity is not guaranteed as there are already talks of replacing the current DVD format with new ones. Until these industries understand that I want data and content on my terms, at a price that makes sense for the way I want to use it, on whatever platform I choose, I see little point in purchasing additional content from these industries when I can download a low quality disposable copy of whatever I want for a one time preview. And who knows, maybe I will actually start to find more interesting, independent content as a result. This of course means that if the RIAA, MPAA, and others do not wake up soon, will anyone be left that cares to buy their content?