The Recording Industry Associate of America, of which Universal Music is a member, as the world’s largest recording label, is now interrogating ten year olds, and forcing students to pay $3000-5000 settlements in order to offset its continued downward financial spiral, arguably due to the fact that they neglected the lights speed growth in demand for digitized music at sold reasonable prices.

My recommendation: (1) disassociate itself from the RIAA, or (2) call the RIAA off, but most importantly Universal should invest in technology that will allow them to participate in the already enormous market for non-DRM, digital music sold at fair prices. Alternatively, Universal will be forced to continue to pay RIAA lawyers as they suck the blood out of what is left of the market of which they remain in control while other channels for the distribution of music, offered directly from unsigned artists, are created, as they watch from the sidelines.

Sitting back and watching the RIAA attack members of your best market is irresponsible and certainly not doing the right thing.