Motley Fool Warns Investors Off RIAA Member Companies

[MacMagus]

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/20...-riaa.aspx

As I've said before, a good sign of a dying industry that investors might want to avoid is when it would rather litigate than innovate, signaling a potential destroyer of value. If it starts to pursue paying customers -- which doesn't seem that outlandish at this point -- then I guess we'll all know the extent of the desperation. Investor, beware.

A stock sell-off might just be the final nail in the coffin for them.

[C(-)ris]

I can't wait.

[MacArtist]

Here, here.

[spearmint]

Is this an overreaction to the Washington Post mistake posted above?

[MacMagus]

The Post story misused a quote, but other industry reps have said much the same thing that the Post alleged... just not in a legal brief.

This is another excerpt from the same MF piece:

Although there's a lot of clarification going on over the Internet now -- pointing out that the RIAA can't specifically target ripping CDs for personal use, since that falls within "fair use" -- the RIAA hasn't lent much reason to give it the benefit of the doubt as a reasonable entity here lately.

After all, a lawyer for Sony BMG said during a recent high-profile file-sharing trial that making one measly copy was, "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'." I joked at the time that maybe they'll come after us for singing tunes in the shower, but at this point, maybe that thought isn't funny so much as scary.