RIAA out to get you, whoever you are

Thank God for the RIAA.

The streets of Beckley, W.Va., have felt a little safer ever since… Thank God for the RIAA.

The streets of Beckley, W.Va., have felt a little safer ever since 83-year-old desperado Gertrude Walton was brought to justice last week. Walton, the latest geriatric to be nabbed in a lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America, even had the audacity to skip out on her court date. Apparently, she had more pressing engagements.

“If music companies are going to set examples, they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people,” Robin Chianumba, Walton’s daughter, told the Associated Press. “My mother wouldn’t even know how to turn on a computer.”

No excuses, Robin. Now start digging. These days, whether you favor Jimmy Eat World or Jimmy Dean, Jack Johnson or Jack Benny, it seems that nobody is safe from the swift, unbending arm of the RIAA, not even Brianna LaHara, a 12-year-old honors student who lives in a New York City apartment complex.

The RIAA commanded Lahara’s mother to pony up $2,000 last year because her computer contained, among other things, copies of “If You’re Happy And You Know It” and the “Family Matters” theme song.

Family Matters? C’mon, Brianna. Urkel’s gotta eat, too.

“We’re trying to send a strong message that you are not anonymous when you participate in peer-to-peer file sharing, and that the illegal distribution of copyrighted music has consequences,” RIAA chief executive Mitch Bainwol said.

Bainwol isn’t kidding — a few months ago, in a bold, Kafkaesque flourish, RIAA agents donning paramilitary garb swooped in on Ceasar Borrayo, a 4-foot-11-inch parking attendant, confiscating 78 of his CDs, which included titles like Como Te Extrano Vol. IV — Musica de los ’70s y ’80s.

“They tried to scare me,” Borrayo said, speaking through an interpreter. “They told me, ‘You’re a pirate!’ I said, ‘C’mon, guys, pirates are all at sea. I just work in a parking lot.'”

Sorry, but I’m with Bainwol on this one — now that ’80s-bootleg-distributing pirates like Borrayo have been apprehended, I expect demand for my copies of Starship’s platinum-selling Knee Deep In The Hoopla to skyrocket.

Twelve-year-olds? Dead grannies? Am I missing something, or has the RIAA finally lost it?

After all, despite CD sales rising 2.3 percent in 2004 and the fact that those 666 million CDs sold still account for 98 percent of the market, along with 140 million legally downloaded tracks, this whole file-sharing and CD-burning business must be hurting somebody if the RIAA is launching sting operations over it, right?

The RIAA likes to paint itself as a guardian angel of the little men. They’ll lecture to you about starving gospel singers and record-store owners who are suffering because of file swapping, as if these people were getting loofah-bathed in Perrier by French maids before Napster came along.

But if Bainwol and his junkyard gang at the RIAA weren’t so busy stocking up on Tasers and impersonating Jack Bauer, they might be able to see how absurd this claim really is.

Let’s first consider the clientele: sexually confused 12-year-olds who lack the proper judgment to distinguish between Van Morrison and Van Halen.

Also remember that a good majority of the songs out there are already corrupted — meaning that your favorite single is very likely to be cut off by what sounds like 10,000 infant chimpanzees being run through a meat grinder.

Between corrupted files, misnamed tracks and sound quality that rivals the hi-fi in my friend’s Chevelle, fewer people than ever before rely on their P2Ps for anything beyond deciding if $18 is worth the investment. And guess what? They seem to think it is.

It’s the little pink spoon, Bainwol, not the whole sundae, so could we quit bullying Tiny Tim and our beloved Aunt Mildred with these frivolous lawsuits?

Besides, if downloading tracks through P2Ps were the kind of thievery that the RIAA thinks it is, would so many good Christians in search of gospel music heedlessly disobey the eighth commandment?

How would that confession sound? Bless me, father, for I have directly connected? Two Hail Mary’s for every mp3? And if he should find any Ashlee Simpson — and he means any — it’s straight to the seventh circle for you.

Five words: All Streisand, all the time.

Michael Darling thinks the “Air Wolf” theme is far superior to that of “Family Matters.” Send feedback to mdarling82@yahoo.com.