Author's Note: When I posted this the first time, the format was weird and the ending cut off. Here it is again. Also, I got some confusing reviews. For the record, I am anti-RIAA. I am making a point.

An issue that I feel is not given enough attention, yet is a prominent part of life in America, is that of copyright law. For the sake of brevity, I will focus on copyright law as it pertains to music and lyrics.

This issue is the subject of many debates, most of which are squelched by the iron fist of the Recording Industry Association of America. Since 1998, the RIAA has filed thousands of lawsuits against those convicted of piracy. This figure is not limited to manufacturers of counterfeit recordings. It includes users of popular peer-to-peer networks such as KaZaa, Napster, and other file-sharing services. The RIAA deems such networks a threat to their annual revenue, claiming that only 15 of their sales return enough revenue to cover the costs of production. Considering the profit the RIAA receives each year-as well as the lack of evidence to support any relationship between Internet piracy and a supposed decline in record sales-there may be little change in revenue if Internet piracy became obsolete. Nonetheless, this supposed threat is very real to the RIAA and its associates, who cannot cover the damage with their revenue alone, and therefore must resort to lawsuits.

But despite the many warnings issued by this billion-dollar monopoly, we have yet to see any decline in the number of pirates infesting the country. There are an estimated sixty-five million who currently use peer-to-peer networks, and only ten thousand have faced any sort of legal retaliation. The industry does not have the time, or the money, to stop this insurrection all at once, and chooses instead to focus on those who have distributed a substantial amount of copyrighted material. Add to that the many who use the CD-R (Recordable Compact Disk) to distribute recordings at little cost and no risk, and it is obvious that the RIAA cannot stop piracy simply by taking legal action. So what is to be done to protect intellectual property, as well as the financial value of the artists who produce such property?

One unique approach has already been proposed by many. The RIAA, which has dispatched numerous teams of highly trained technicians all over the Internet, now has access to these pirates, who once were nameless statistics which they could not see coming. If the RIAA fully utilized these resources, as well as an innovative technique commonly known as ‘hacking,' they could not only obtain personal information from those unfortunate enough to encounter one of these technicians, but could transmit their own information as well. From a single stolen recording to an entire hard drive, programs designed to terminate other programs could easily be dispatched wherever the RIAA sees a need. These programs could be installed in the network itself, or could be sent directly to the computers of anyone who uses the network. Once the program is installed, it could be used either to delete all copyrighted material that it finds, or to erase the hard drive in its entirety. This would not stop a determined pirate, but would render the trade useless.

But this theory is not without its flaws. We have not given due attention to the CD-R, which is perhaps the greatest threat to protecting intellectual property. The exchange of bootlegged recordings is done in secret, and with the exception of commercial volume reproduction, cannot be proven. So I propose another move to complement the aforementioned move. We will raise the price on CD-Rs. We have stopped Internet piracy, and now the RIAA can gain profit from the exchange of bootlegged recordings. I estimate that the suggested retail price of a new CD-R would be somewhere around twenty dollars. This will bring enough revenue to cover the cost of production, perhaps more than a legitimate copy.

But even with such precautions, there is still the issue of the computers themselves. Copyrighted recordings can be transferred to a computer and kept there, and there is no way to discern whether the transfer was legal, for there is no law prohibiting multiple copies of a product if you do, in fact, own a legitimate copy. So I propose a third solution. We will ban the use of computers that are capable of employing copyrighted material. There will be no ‘media players,' nor will there be a place on a personal computer for sound recordings. If you want a backup copy, purchase another copy.

Perhaps there is no method that will entirely stop piracy in its tracks. But when the three techniques are in effect, then it will reduce the threat to a mere nuisance. Then, the RIAA may use its resources to expand the field of digital media, without fear that an unidentified felon might be using the same methods without compensating for the damage.