Raising the Barriers to Entry
Despite their cries of piracy, file trading is not what the record industry fears. What they fear is competition, something the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) figured out with regard to the Internet long before they ever took Napster to trial. The Internet has lowered the barriers of entry for Netizens by serving as a cheap pipeline that the average Joe with nothing but a PC, some software and Web access could leverage to reach an audience the record industry has to spend millions to access. The reaction of the entertainment conglomerates is that his must be stopped!