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A new lawsuit source for the RIAA

Dear RIAA,

Over the past few years, I couldn’t help but notice your subtle steps against evildoers who violate the fair-use policies that you are so graciously granting to us. I completely agree that the use of illegal technologies such as file-sharing and wireless lan has to be dealt with elegantly and swiftly. So far, I have been especially impressed by the great amount of sensibility and sensitivity that your lawyers have exhibited in their struggle against the violation of our copyright laws.

While I was thrilled to hear of your recent success in court, the image of the starving artists I’m sure you are distributing your small monetary compensation amongst warming my heart, there are some clouds on the horizon: The evildoers are working on new file-sharing protocols that might make tracking down the vermin who use them much harder for your internet experts. There also seems to be a shift from illegal music downloads to movie downloads, making it harder and harder to find evildoers to sue for a little compensation. While I understand that you cannot live off producing good music alone, I have a suggestion to make for a new lawsuit source to tap into.

Leaky headphones. Have you never been on the bus, suddenly hearing music coming from the headphones of the guy sitting next to you? I have to admit that this has recently happened to me again. I feel sorry and ashamed to admit that I did not own the rights to the music I was exposed to from this person’s leaky headphones. Therefore, I’m making this proposal as a slight compensation for my wrong-doing (since I was talking on the cellphone at the time, I couldn’t cover my ears. I know that this is a bad excuse, but I was so shocked by the sudden perception of music I have no license to that I basically froze in terror). Please consider my idea and make some money off it so that I can finally look at myself in the mirror again.

Considering you already made the humble sum of $222,000 for 24 downloaded songs, just think of what you could make by suing somebody who is commuting to work every day for an hour with their leaky headphones, giving away your music to unsuspecting bystanders who do not own the rights to it! If the average length of a song is assumed to be 5 minutes, that’s $111,000 per day or $40,515,000 per year. And all that just from a single person! If you think of the millions of commuters all around the world, I hope you can see the same potential that I am seeing. You do not even have to stop at the people using these leaky headphones, just go for the bystanders who do not cover their ears as well as the manufacturers of the headphones.

I understand that your extremely competent technology partners will come up with a good solution to the leaky headphone problem in the long-term. May I suggest the development of a secure digital plug that can be implanted into your customers’ skull, circumventing the need for the potentially illegal consumption of music through our ears. Given your impressive record of technological competence regarding digital rights management over the past few years, I am sure that nobody would be afraid of having your technology implanted into their brain.

I hope you will consider my suggestion. After all, I am an ardent supporter of your noble goals…