Originally published on 06/06/2011 on lubbockonline.com
Sheila Burke and Lucas L. Johnson II report in the Tennessean that Tennessee has passed legislation making it illegal to share logins to "entertainment subscription services." The article focuses on Netflix logins, but it covers any kind of entertainment subscription login - whatever that means.
According to the article Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) pushed for this bill, which makes the big focus of all the news stories - Netflix - all the stranger. The RIAA's concern would primarily be music services like Rhapsody, but the law does cover anything that could be called an "entertainment subscription service." Netflix qualifies, and sharing of logins in college dorms and by 'services' selling logins could be a problem. But is this really a big problem, or is this another case of an industry with a failing old business model looking for any excuse to explain it's problems other than the fact that old business models are changing, and businesses that won't change will fail?
The question is, how long will they be able to push legislation to prop their old, failing business model up, and how much damage will they do in that time?
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