They came in the middle of the night...

Now that Napster is gone, music publishers, led by the "almighty" RIAA, have now figured out another way to bully their way into our lives, and force us to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's." Aimee Deep at Musicpundit points to a Washington Post article which details the vile plans of the RIAA, and how they are already shooting at Verizon's users to see if this grand scheme can work.

First, serve millions of secret subpoenas to get our personal identities; then, choose from among us who they will sue or prosecute.

By taking this route, going after individuals will be akin to shooting fish in a barrel for the RIAA. If they can get judges like Marilyn Patel (who adjudicated the Napster decision) on their side, anyone decrying the RIAA's Gestapo-like tactics will be fair game as well.

The RIAA attempts to present itself as a good friend to the technology, going out of their way to reach out to the technological community in one-on-one Q&A sessions and other venues. But when you look at those "feel-good" sessions and compare them to the venom that the RIAA spews forth when attempting to penetrate the veil of privacy in cases like the Verizon case, you have to wonder how much of their talking is truth, and how much is lies for the media.

They are attacking AIMster/Madster, and they are doing their level best to come up with a well-reasoned way to attack other peer-to-peer ad-hoc networks like Gnutella and Kazaa.

In the blogcritics.org Q&A session, RIAA president Cary Sherman insisted to more than one questioner (including myself) that they were not out to limit the technology and destroy the marketplace. All the evidence that has shown up of late insists that they are — unless they are able to control the means, method, amount and cost of access by the end user; in other words forcing the users to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. I'm sure Sherman and RIAA Chairman Hilary Rosen are high fiving each other over each victory and proudly proclaim (to coin a Mel Brooks quote) , "It's good to be the king."