The Copyright Industry, especially the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) have suppressed every form of innovation, and technology to protect their questionable rights.  In the 80s, they sued to stop video recorders, but were thankfully held back by the Supreme Court in the famous Betamax case.  The Media Industry forced manufacturers of blank cassettes, tapes, and CDs to pay a royalty to reimburse the industry because the blank recording media might be used to infringe copyright. That is right; your preacher's sermon tapes actually were forced to subsidize Hollywood.

In 1998, the RIAA sued to stop the first portable Mp3 player, Diamond Rio, from being sold.

In 1999, they took down Napster, the breakthrough file sharing program upstart.  Then they cut a swath of destruction going after a plethora of file sharing services, with such vicious tactics as suing children who downloaded songs for unconscionable amounts of money.

Upping the outrage, they tried to gut the First Amendment with the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), which imperiled the whole Internet by making search engines and hosting companies liable for piracy that the technology companies had nothing to do with. Only when technology giants apprised Congress that technology produced more jobs than the media, did Congress back off. Temporarily!

In 2014, the RIAA considered suing Google for even listing sites that people could use to rip media.

The RIAA previously found that for 98% of the music related searches they performed, “pirate sites” were listed on the first page of the search results. According to the music group, this is an indication that more proactive measures are required, in the interests of both Google and the labels.

“So the enforcement system we operate under requires us to send a staggering number of piracy notices – 100 million and counting to Google alone—and an equally staggering number of takedowns Google must process. And yet pirated copies continue to proliferate and users are bombarded with search results to illegal sources over legal sources for the music they love,” Sherman notes. - Torrent Freak

Why is it in Google's interest to doctor their search engine results for make the copyright industry happy?  And is the word, "bombarded" appropriate for providing the public with search results that the public wants? This is industry propaganda. Now, the RIAA is going full speed after You Tube ripping.

So what is YouTube ripping?

A few years ago, soon after file sharing sites were sued into oblivion, technology surfaced which made it possible to rip the music directly off of YouTube videos. No longer did one have to download buggy software to download files - and which ironically opened one's computer to viruses.  One could merely go to YouTube, copy the URL and then go to a ripping site to split the mp3 music off of the video, and then download it. This 2010 video - made at just about the same time that LimeWire file sharing service was finally taken down - gives some instruction. (Click Here).  More recent instruction videos are easily searched out.  Newer sites are incredibly ease to use.

News of the YouTube ripping technique spread slowly at first, except among technophiles; but soon enough, the Media Industry's victory over file sharing software/services would prove pyrrhic. YouTube ripping had the advantage of being incredibly easy and all but untraceable. No need to worry about RIAA lawsuits.

So, now, the RIAA is back again, crying foul, going nuts, suing YouTube ripping sites.

This week a huge coalition of recording labels headed by the RIAA, IFPI, and BPI, sued YouTube ripping service YouTube-MP3. Today we take a closer look at the lawsuit which was filed against a German company, owned and operated by a German citizen, which could seek damages running into the hundreds of millions of dollars. - Torrent Freak

This time, the RIAA has lost all reason. They are once again playing Whack-a-Mole - which is what they have been doing all along.  If history teaches anything, innovators, by their very nature, will always outpace Luddites. YouTube ripping sites have proliferated across the web - with this link at this time, showing 95 million results for a search for YouTube rippers.

Nothing will stop the RIAA, the MPAA, and the Media Industry, though.

Hollywood media moguls are intent on preserving a dying business model. Worse yet, they expect technology companies to provide the technical expertise to protect their quasi-monopoly.  It is much cheaper to have Google, Microsoft, and Facebook pay programmers to fight piracy than the RIAA actually hiring programmers to come up with the technology themselves.

Then again, their incompetence in this area has been humiliating.

In an attempt to curb music piracy, major labels such as Sony started selling music CDs that have built-in “copy-proof” technology. The technology was meant to stop people from copying music from these discs onto recordable CDs or hard drives. There's a fatal flaw in this technology, however, which allows you to bypass the copy protection with a simple marker pen, and a recent upsurge in Internet newsgroup talk about this flaw has brought it to light again.  -- Geek (2002)

Open up a cafe or a bar with some live music and you could be forced to pay three royalty collection agencies: ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.

Antonowisch explained that once ASCAP got wind that they had live music (even though they were only holding about 12 concerts a year), ASCAP began their crusade. “They called us everyday. They sent two letters a day. They threatened us with a lawsuit because they said we had violated copyright,” Antonowisch lamented. As not to get sued, the coffee shop owners conceded. They agreed to pay ASCAP the $600 yearly license for the right to have live music.

But then they found out that there was another PRO that required the same license. BMI. (snip)

Then, as luck would have it, SESAC got in touch. And they demanded just over $700.)snip)

Bauhaus [the cafe] actually explained to ASCAP that all of their musicians play original music and ASCAP shot back “how do you know? Do you know every song ever written?” So the PROs won’t believe a venue if they claim that they only host original music. And all it takes is one musician to play one cover song for a PRO to sue for serious damages.   -  Digital Music News

Consider them three mafias.  A protection racket.  Once you pay one, the others want their cut. Add in the MPAA, the RIAA, and it is legalized corruption. Congress indulges them because the media can make or break a politician's career; and so Congress passes more and more noxious copyright laws, to protect their monopoly.

As part of draining the swamp, this new administration has nothing to lose offending the media.  Trump should reform our copyright laws. Copyrights should be limited to no more time than patents: 20 years.  Getting a technical patent can require decades of investments and education.  Why should a song written over a short period of time get protected for 70 years plus the life of the author?

These media moguls are mafiosi in legal garb.  It is high time they were told that it is not the duty of Google, YouTube, Microsoft, or Apple to protect their recordings.  If the media companies cannot protect their own product, then so be it.

Let the industry die off. It is a dinosaur in an age of mammals. It is a relic that has lots its usefulness like royalty, and aristocracy. We won't have to suffer industry stars telling us how enlightened they are, and how retro-stupid the public is.

For decades they have monopolized American and Western culture - often destroying our core values - and charged us for the privilege of their artistic rampage.  We were stupid to put up with it. Now they are suing us. Let them die out. Let music and artistic creation return to the individual, as it was when the republic was born. Let the copyright attorneys find something useful to do.

Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who wishes he had availed himself more fully of the opportunity to learn Spanish in high school, lo those many decades ago.