Music consumers, the record industry wants you to know that this is going to hurt them more than it’s going to hurt you! If the Recording Industry Association of America sues you, it’s … for your own good.

“This is a form of tough love,” said Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the RIAA in Washington, which is made up of the biggest music industry labels.

That comes from a column up at Marketwatch by Therese Poletti. I looked it up and find it comes from an interview Cnet did with Lamy last year.

Lamy is talking about the tens of thousands of lawsuits the industry group has filed against online file-sharers. Hitsville’s position is that, while sharing music that way is unquestionably wrong, the RIAA’s tactics are counterproductive and useless in any case, given the nature of the new digital world.

Why the industry persists in this initiative, however, is also tied to the nature of the new digital world. There is nothing else it can do. It’s hard to see a model of the future that has a meaningful role for the record companies, as they are configured today. What the RIAA calls “tough love” from this vantage point seems more like the thrashings about of a wolverine with its leg caught in a trap.

Or if you want a more culturally evocative metaphor, check out Poletti’s column:

As any fan of “The Sopranos” knows, the mob often takes out its enemies in a gruesome fashion as a way to warn others to fall in line.

The same can be said of the campaign over the past four years instigated by the dreaded Recording Industry Association of America, more commonly known as the RIAA, which has been on a mission to stop or slow down the practice of illegal music downloading online.

Their special target, as most people know, has been college students, with some seeing their very education come under threat for what used to be a time-honored tradition — copying their friends’ music.

[…]

Much like the New York mob family in “The Sopranos,” the RIAA is trying to send a blunt message—that downloading free music using peer-to-peer networks could cost them dearly.

I don’t condone music piracy, but the RIAA’s tactics are nearly as bad as the actions of mobsters, real or fictional.