It is a basic principle of the Universe that adolescents and near-adolescents view all threats and warnings from adults as an opportunity to display independence from adult authority. The more you wag your finger at them, the more they wonder what secret pleasure you're trying to keep them from this time. Tell 'em it will drive them insane. They laugh. Tell them the police will arrest them and throw them in jail. They call the police 'pigs,' and keep right on smokin' the stuff. Have these RIAA nitwits never been teenagers? This is Reefer Madness all over again. "Booga Booga! It's wrong! It's illegal! We'll come and get you!" This has stopped adolescent sex and drug use how well? Free rock & roll... might as well be sex or drugs as far as teenagers are concerned. On Monday they get the adults telling them not to screw, on Tuesday they get the adults telling them that weed will rot their brains, and here come these guys to tell them not to download songs from the Internet. Teenagers interpret this as meaning "screwing, smoking dope, and downloading music are forbidden pleasures. Let's go do 'em!" If the RIAA's target market wasn't so young, you could see them doing this. But as a strategy for changing adolescent behavior, they have hit on the one thing that is guaranteed to create more of what they don't want. Challenging teenagers to be rebellious is like daring a snake to bite you. |
How do you spend your life in Hollywood, around the music business, without learning the lesson of 