Pioneering companies form customer relationships with permission marketing, but the RIAA nukes the

I have never seen a for-profit group commit financial suicide so blindly and rapidly. In an age when most companies are learning about permission marketing and using technologies like permission email software to get closer to their customers, the RIAA is launching nukes. On the receiving end, it isn't a bunch of thuggish pirates who are being nuked, either: it's 12-year-old girls, old grandmothers who've never even heard of Tupac, and penniless teenagers who couldn't afford a $17 CD at the retail store even if they wanted one.

In other words, the RIAA is suing people who mostly wouldn't be buying music anyway, and yet the RIAA is destroying any hope of future sales from these kids who will someday have jobs and actually enjoy discretionary income.

Watching all this, I can only sit back and laugh: the RIAA is going to get precisely what they deserve out of all this -- the vanishing of their way of life.

• WASHINGTON (AP) - The recording industry on Wednesday sued 532 computer users it said were illegally distributing songs over the Internet, the first lawsuits since a federal appeals court blocked the use of special copyright subpoenas to identify those being targeted.
• "Our campaign against illegal file sharers is not missing a beat," said Cary Sherman, president of the recording association.
• The RIAA said that after its lawyers discover the identity of each defendant, they will contact each person to negotiate a financial settlement before amending the lawsuit to formally name the defendant and, if necessary, transfer the case to the proper courthouse.