Is the RIAA bending a bit?

Think the RIAA is out to sue all file-sharers? Maybe not. A report in Wired suggests that they’re being uncharacteristically lenient in one area: MP3 blogs. If you’re unaware of them, the concept is pretty simple. The authors post descriptions of albums and/or songs, and link to where you can download them, usually for free. These songs are not hosted by the blogs, but rather third-party hosting services like Rapid Share.
The question is, why don’t the record companies care? If they’re spinning their wheels and suing Limewire and Bittorrent users, why aren’t they going after these music bloggers? After all, they’re facilitating the illegal download of copyrighted material (the words of the RIAA, not of me).
First is traffic volume. For instance, one of the more popular blogs, It’s Coming Out Of Your Speaker, saw just 1,487 visitors yesterday. That is substantial by some means, but in the overall scheme of things, it’s a drop in the pan. I run a fairly popular baseball blog (specifically on the New York Yankees, furthering the niche), and we see double that traffic on a normal day — and even more now because of the climate within the niche. In any event, far more people visit Bittorrent and P2P sharing sites daily than these blogs.
Second is culpability. The overwhelming majority of these MP3 blogs are hosted by Blogger or WordPress, rather than being independently hosted. This leaves the RIAA wondering where they should set their targets, if they are to do so at all. It’s one thing to publish copyrighted material. It’s quite another to post a link to copyrighted material on a blog that you don’t technically own (since it’s hosted by Blogger or WordPress, they reserve the right to take down your blog). So it’s unclear whether they can even do anything to the bloggers.
Third is relevancy. I searched through a few of these blogs, and all I found was obscure and older music. Those aren’t exactly the alleys from which the RIAA makes its dough. It’s more concerned with the piracy of mainstream music, the kind that can rake in millions, even billions through record stores and digital outlets like iTunes and the Amazon store. I doubt the RIAA cares if three copies of an old New York Dolls album is downloaded. Chances are, no one was going to buy it anyway.
(Aside: This is no knock on the New York Dolls or any other obscure band. It’s a mere sales issue. I’m all for the more obscure music…and have actually taken a liking to the selections on these blogs.)
You’d think that the RIAA would be even more fired up because of the advertising issue. Not only are these bloggers giving people a portal to download these copyrighted albums for free, but they’re making a dime or two from advertising through Google AdSense. The RIAA I know wouldn’t stand for people profiting from piracy.
To me, this signals that something is up. We don’t have all the relevant data at hand, after all. Perhaps there has been a measurable growth in the sales of these more obscure and older albums since the MP3 blogs have come into existence. Going back to the New York Dolls example, maybe they sold 10 albums per month before the birth of MP3 blogs. But after they were mentioned on one of them, they sold 50 albums the next month. I don’t think the record companies are going to complain about that, do you?
That might not necessarily be the case, but it’s something to consider. For all we know, they could be leaving this issue alone because they have bigger issues at hand — like the threat of EMI to cut funding to the group. Yeah, that might matter a bit more to them than MP3 blogs.
But they’re out there, so you might as well check them out. My suggestion is to hit up It’s Coming Out Of Your Speaker and checking out the links list. Should be able to find plenty of material there.

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