socialrosiechen: RIAA forks out $64 million to catch music pirates, recovers just $1.3 million in 3 years

Thursday, August 5, 2010

RIAA forks out $64 million to catch music pirates, recovers just $1.3 million in 3 years

From the putting-a-smile-on-your-newly-awoken-face department...

The aptly named Recording Industry vs. The People blog has done a little investigative journalism and produced some fantastic figures that truly illustrate just how pathetically pointless the RIAA is. Over the course of three years, the RIAA has spent a total of $64 million in the tracking down and prosecution of music pirates. The total amount recovered by the RIAA, in the form of settlements and fines, is a paltry $1.3 million.

The RIAA, if you weren't aware, is funded by the music industry. That $64 million --instead of going to the artists -- will have instead have been handed to the RIAA to be squandered inefficiently and, looking at the numbers, impotently.

Of course, the other way of looking at it is that music pirates are putting food on the plates of these poor, useless lawyers who can't litigate to save their asses.