The Recording Industry Association of America is firing dozens of workers in what seems to be a total collapse of the lobbying and litigation front.
Major “personnel re-allocations” are already underway, with Hype.bot suggesting that there could be over 100 people “let go”. An unnamed source has even said:
(The) RIAA as you know it is probably history by Tuesday of next week, a formal announcement is being drafted for drop next week.
The recession, and its announced pullback of its 5-year-old litigation campaign, are among the reasons being offered as the cause for the organization’s demise.
Over the past five years, almost 30,000 people have been sued for file sharing, but the sudden closure of operations seems to throw a shadow over the future of the RIAA, especially as it was supposed to be moving into ISPs.
Or does it? On that day the educational consortium is having a presentation by the guy in charge of Choruss. Choruss itself is the “independent” nonprofit organization that would collect funds from universities and ISPs and disburse them to copyright holders and that three of the “Big Four”(Sony, EMI, Universal, Warner) have signed on.
While those that will be cheering the loss of the assassin of both Napster and Grokster, some believe that it’s just a fat-trimming exercise that will see the IFPI (Suing Pirate Bay), PEGI (European Rating System), BPI (British Music Protector) and the RIAA combined into some freakishly long acronym gestalt.
There might even be room in there for the The Motion Picture Association of America, which also announced layoffs last week.
Source: Wired
