RIAA

The RIAA values my 500+ CD collection at approximately $2 billion. I'm willing to sell the collection at a penny on the dollar, any takers?

see also
Cracked.com - The Pirate Bay

To commemorate the start of the RIAA v Thomas-Rasset trail, I'll take a look at an aspect of the band/fan relationship. In particular, the fan reaction to Lar Ulrich's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Lars Ulrich is the drummer for Metallica (wikipedia), a band with many devoted fans. After testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2000, many fans reacted negatively to his testimony.

Why the backlash? Clearly people downloading Metallica's music were infringing on the band's copyright. Why would fans react in anger to Lars and Metallica for defending their legal rights? I believe there are a number of things going on here, but today I'll just focus on one, the clash between the "social" and "market" worlds. In Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely (whose work I've discussed previously) talks about this in the chapter The Cost of Social Norms. When these two worlds clash problems occur, as Ariely discusses in this video.

Despite the fact that fans do spend money a band's CDs, concerts and merchandise, they don't view their connection with a band as a commercial relationship, they see themselves as FANS of the band not CUSTOMERS. By going before the Senate Judiciary Committee and complaining about Napster and their users, Lars and Metallica were defining the relationship between Metallica and its fans as a commerical relationship.

Canadian writer Cory Doctorow discusses this in his article Macropayments:

"When you take money directly from someone, they become your customer, a relationship that’s fundamentally different from the "writer-reader" relationship that you get when the reader is the publisher’s customer."

Fans reacted negatively, in part, because Lars and Metallica had redefined them as customers not fans.

see also
Larry Lessig discusses what he defines as the commerical and sharing economies (starting at 26:45) in this presentation.