While it was originally instituted in 1998 as part of the hardly publicly-minded World Trade Organization's mandates for member countries, the DMCA is one step closer to actually handing the country over to corporate rule. (Lest we forget, the government is currently the sole property of Halliburton.) For instance, the Act gives the recording industry, which is a trade group and not something that anyone actually voted on, essentially Gestapo-like powers. Rather than the subpoena being given by an actual judge, it can be issued by the clerk of a United States District Court upon reasonable suspicion that you're hooked up to a peer-to-peer network such as WinMX or KaZaA. Bam—your ISP has to provide all your information, including your name, address, telephone number, shoe size, and whether or not you wank to the girls jumping on trampolines during the "Man Show" credits. And, if they find any music files after they confiscate your hard drive, you'll most likely be their indentured servant for the rest of your natural life, with a large chunk of your wages garnished to pay off the "damages." For a trade group to wield that kind of influence is ridiculous. Hell, Ralph Nader wishes he had that kind of pull.

Moreover, the entire argument that the recording industry uses to defend its actions—that it protects artists' rights—is patently ridiculous. Music today is an industry; songs and "artists" are manufactured the way Andy Warhol manufactured silkscreens and the Velvet Underground. To suggest that Creed or Avril Lavigne or Justin Timberlake or some other assembly-line device for branding sound is having the fruits of their labors ripped off by file-swapping script kiddies is like suggesting that Milli Vanilli is getting ripped off every time someone fires up a karaoke machine. Through the magic of marketing, the recording industry has made something otherwise worthless into a precious commodity, restricted public access to it by making the prices ridiculously high (have you seen what they're charging for CDs these days?!), and then screaming bloody murder when a black market develops.

What the RIAA is really afraid of is that file sharing is destroying this little racket they've got going. Historically, the recording industry got huge at the same time that people moved from the shoulder-to-shoulder crowding cities to the bland anonymity of the suburbs—limiting their access to live music venues and other sources of authentic culture, but opening the door for the culture-manufacturing industry to step in and provide us with an amazing simulation thereof, just the same way that Wonder Bread and Spam are amazing simulations of actual food. What the Internet has done is digitally reconnect us into communities, short-circuiting the means of marketing, manufacture, and distribution that the powers that be have invested so much in.

The RIAA, a dinosaur if there ever was one, knows it's fighting a losing battle against the forces of evolution. Sure, CD sales have declined, but when you consider the lawyers' fees and work hours necessary to indict, convict, and fine even a tiny portion of the people who are swapping files, they're just throwing good money after bad. Like the vicious dog in your neighbor's fenced-in yard, the RIAA is dangerous, but sufficiently remote not to be worrisome to the vast majority of people. And they know it: Take, for example, their recent motions towards persuading Congress that P2P networks are a one-stop source for computer viruses and kiddie porn. Next thing they'll do is require you to pay royalties if you get a song stuck in your head or you sing "Happy Birthday" at someone's party. (Someone actually owns the rights to "Happy Birthday," you know.)

What's even more wrong is for a private entity to hijack the courts and ruin the lives of a small portion of the people who are threatening its imagined hegemony. The way to stop it is by the power of the purse. I, for one, will not buy another freaking CD put out by a major label until the charges against every one of the people indicted under the DCMA are dropped. Maybe then they'll finally shut the fuck up and die.

(Incidentally, I, personally, don't use peer-to-peer networks, simply because what's out there is crap. Do a search for some of the people who've authored half the mp3s on my hard drive—"Lourds" or "Every 13 Days" or "Trogdor the Burninator"—on any p2p, and you're going to get zilch. People made music for millennia before Thomas Edison ever made a wax cylinder, and the survivors huddled in the ruins of our current civilization will continue doing it, at least until the toxic zombies eat their brains. And if I ever meet Lou Reed or Jello Biafra, I'll be sure to slip them a twenty for whatever transgressions the Internet community at large has committed.)