YOUR MOVE, MPAA.

The RIAA has apparently been deputized in New York City:

Employees of Mondo Kim's and fellow NYC record store Other Music, speaking to Pitchfork on conditions of anonymity, confirmed yesterday that five of Mondo Kim's employees were arrested and taken to Manhattan Central Booking, where they spent the night of June 8. When asked why these five employees were singled out for arrest, the Kim's source told us that an undercover agent was allegedly sold a bootleg, and the arrests followed. After the sale, police produced a search warrant, fingered the arrestees, shut down the store for roughly five hours, and confiscated, according to the RIAA, "500 CD-Rs, 27 Music DVDs, Nine DVD burners, and a scanner," among other items, which include the computer containing the store's database and recent sales records.

Meanwhile, you can go down to Canal St. and be offered five copies of "Revenge of the Sith" inside of three minutes with a dozen cops standing right there.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra ::: 2005:06:13:10:11