There are about half a dozen RIAA threads here and you will find some very good discussions on both sides of the fence. In a nutshell, this is why I don't like the RIAA. I know you have a very objective viewpoint because you live in India and you are not a part of the culture that is intimidated directly by the organization.

Here goes: My "personal" take (without my usual dissertation, I hope):

The RIAA represents major recording artists in the US. They are an organization for them much like the NRA is for gun enthusiasts, IBA is for Bankers, AARP is for retired U.S. people, and on and on. Major focus groups are incorporated into our society to promote their own particular cause, both with public opinion and political and economic goals. That is a good thing.

The RIAA feels threatened by seriously declining music sales. They believe that online file distribution via MP3 and CD images are the root cause of this decline in the industry. I can see their point of view. If I was a business man and I saw a projected continued loss of capital then I too would be very concerned. Even if my company or organization was still making a profit, declining revenue would still be a concern.

The problem for me is, I don't see the RIAA representing artists in a true artistic form. I see them as an established greedy organization the will bully and intimidate its OWN customers into buying their music. There really isn't an argument in defense of copying music that you do not own. I can say I wish to sample a song before downloading, but you can already do that. Sure it's not the same quality but you can do it. I could also argue that I don't want the whole album because the industry wants to milk a CD for all it's worth and save up good hits and spread them across multiple album releases that are mostly crap. But you can also buy just a single song from many sources. Then I could argue that I can record it off the radio and that's OK. Well sure, but it doesn't sound as good and you have to set there and wait for a particular song to come on. But you can just record the entire programming of a radio or satellite station and get the music anyway. The real issue with a radio argument is, the RIAA and artists ARE getting compensated for that already. So it's really about money. The RIAA isn't being compensated properly for their efforts at promoting artists and taking a risk on artist who do not make CD sales to recover the investment.

SO, in retaliation the RIAA has waged a war on its own supporters. Even one’s who don’t download! And a nasty one at that. In their pursuit of fairness and compensation they have threatened any means possible to shut down peer to peer networking. I see the downside to peer to peer, and again I can see the RIAA's position. But to "fix" this problem the RIAA seeks to invade the privacy laws and culture that Americans hold dear. Coming from India that may seem ludicrous; You may not have the capacity to believe things could be held "secret" from the state (government). I don't believe that is your case, just a general statement between to very different cultures.

It is the attack on those principles that I hold in contempt. Contempt to the RIAA for threatening its own customers and spending millions if not tens or hundreds of millions on legal fees to systematically seek out and attack those who will not adhere to their threats. Many of these are children whom I believe would not buy the music anyway. In addition the RIAA has asked for and threatened the use of virus and worm programs to release on Kazza and P2P networks that could seek out and destroy pirated music. On top of all that the are bullying and threatening 3rd party internet service providers with threats and repercussions to those companies which will not hand over names of individuals sharing files.

All arguments aside for or against piracy: the RIAA and recording artist that support their efforts are attacking some of the fabric that holds our society together. And they don't care about the repercussions or precedence they set for future rights a corporate entity may have to violate our society. They are blinded by bottom line dollar amounts and growth figures.

Do a search on RIAA here at AO, there are hundreds of postings.

Hmm somoene a while back posted an "Artists" point of view of the RIAA from a recording artist. I can't find it now but hopefully they will repost it for a different perspective.