RIAA vs. Mixtapes

Seems like the poor folks at the RIAA are having a little identity crisis. On one hand, their major label clients supply DJ’s with material for their mixtapes to help promote up-and-coming rappers but now, they’ve had a change of heart about this practice, busting one of their best clients, DJ Drama: Atlanta raid leaves mixtape future in question. So have they now decided that the mixtape practice which they helped to cultivate is no longer favored and also illegal now? If so, why?

Maybe they saw it as hypocracy to bust students for free downloads while letting DJ’s use their music for free on mixtapes they’d sell. The thorny problem again is that the labels were supplying these DJ’s (including Drama) with some of the music for these tapes. So what the hell is their stance now? “Uh… we’ve decided that this practice that we’ve help to promote is now illegal and we’re going to prosecute people who do it.” But wouldn’t that make them accessories to a crime?

I find their moral streak to be a suspicious change of heart. They’ve obviously decided that it’s more important to keep busting people for not paying for music. One of the many problems with this stupid stance is that this is par for the course for these idiots- stomp out all means of alternative promotion that they don’t fully control, even if it means that they’ve also stomped out ways to promote their own artists. Speaking of which, I wish we could hear from some rappers and see what they have to say about this RIAA move.