Richard is mad. Richard is very, very mad. Why? Let’s get to why in a moment.

Richard owns a store chain with shops worldwide. It’s an immensely popular store because Richard has managed to obtain a worldwide monopoly on the distribution of bananas — don’t ask the narrator how, or why, Richard managed such a feat, but he did, and here he is — mad, for reasons we’ll get to in a moment.

Richard’s many many stores contain boxes and boxes of bananas of various flavor and sorts, for Richard indeed has the monopoly to distribute all kinds — African bananas, Kenyan bananas, American bananas, Swedish bananas, big bananas, small bananas, and so on.

Richard’s customers were at first satisfied with his service. The bananas were out in clear sight and the customers could pick and choose the best and the fresh. However, this lead to a very annoying issue, at least in Richard’s eyes…

The rotten fruit remained. The bad fruit remained. Even the bananas with such a simple flaw as a little fur on the edge remained. For many a day, Richard pondered how to counter this problem, and how to manage to sell the rotten fruit also, for, in his eyes, the millions he raked in on the fresh fruit nigh on outweighed the losses he made for the rotten fruit he had to throw away!

And one day it came to him — and the very next day as customers trickled in to get their bananas, they were met with quite an extraordinary surprise…

The bananas were boxed! Each bunch was in a separate, non-transparent, plastic-wrapped box labeled with its origin and flavor. Now customers suddenly couldn’t pick and choose between the individual fruits anymore. They had to go for the flavor and origin that they thought might suit their tastes and then hope for the best.

Some customers came home with a box filled with only 3 or 4 good bananas and the rest simply went in the trash. Some came home with a single banana that was fresh and all the others bad. Some even came home with boxes filled with rotting, decaying fruit. Needless to say, customers were upset, but what could they do? They had the choice of no bananas, or Richard’s bananas, and, banana-loving folks as they were, they swallowed their pride and went on with it.

Years passed, and Richard raked in the big bucks. More shops opened all over the place, and the banana prices soared. Customers with all-bad boxes were given the option of returning their boxes — presuming they hadn’t removed the protective plastic covering the box that is, and while some of the more daring customers accusingly pointed out that there is no way to check the state of the bananas without opening the box, and no way to open the box without removing the protective plastic wrapping, most of them seemed content with this obvious robbery. The bananas weren’t that expensive, anyway, and they could always try again tomorrow and hope for a better, fresher result that time.

However, a most unpleasant circumstance had developed. All over the world, illegal groups had started buying bananas, planting the seeds and producing their own bananas. And worst of all, they gave bananas away for free, to anyone who wanted one! Not only were they planting banana trees illegally, but they were planting banana trees of every single kind, and all of these banana trees were directly derivative of Richard’s own harvest. Since Richard owns a monopoly on bananas, this thus was a most illegal endeavour; thievery in fact, and thus the reason for his anger.
These banana-pirates producing their own bananas off of his are causing his winnings to drop substantially. Of course they are! If people can get bananas for free, why would they buy them? The only thing keeping Richard afloat is the fact most people don’t know where to go to get illegal bananas, but Richard knows it’s only a matter of time before his industry collapses in upon itself and falls apart.

But he, being the fighter he is (I mean, he managed to get a monopoly on bananas, for crying out loud; you bet he’s a fighter for pulling such a feat off — sort of like patenting “water”), won’t give up without a fight. So he calls to the aid of the governments of the individual countries, preaching to them, pouring his entire soul into charismatic speeches about property rights; and the governments, teary-eyed, set it upon themselves personally to invest some of their police force’s time into finding these banana pirates, “and to hell with the unsolved murder cases!” one of the prominent ministers exclaim with unabashed excitement, his enthusiasm not at all colored by the shiny bills that found their way into his pocket somehow.

So a few years pass, but Richard realizes that the illegal banana business has only increased in intensity. The police investigations are for the most part fruitless (pardon the pun), as the illegal banana pirates are cunning about covering their tracks. So Richard decides it’s time for the bigger tools. He calls again upon the governments of the countries of the world, preaching throughout the night about the need for surveillance and the need to ensure that citizens behave themselves — and to ensure that no illegal bananas plantations take place, as an afterthought.

The government leaders, mightily impressed with this for-humanity, for-the-world exclamation, realize that Richard’s foremost wish is the good of mankind, and solemnly they agree. And to hell with integrity.

This story is obviously not real, but it’s reflecting a very real situation that is occuring in the world right now. It is hopefully a humorous story that will make you think about what is going on, especially with the Record Industry of America, persecuting the very fans whom are the foundation of the industry they are attempting to protect.

How many times haven’t you bought a movie or a music album which turned out to be incomprehensibly, unthinkably, unbelievably bad? To the point where you, for the remainder of your life, will even be embarrassed about the fact you made the purchase in the first place? The rampant, illegal pirating of movies and music out there began for a reason — and it’s not exclusively “people are cheap thieves”. I may be wrong, but I am of the firm belief that humans prefer to not break the law. They prefer to be law abiding citizens, paying for their cartons of milk and their loaves of bread, paying their taxes and being in general on the light side. But despite this, more people download stuff illegally than not. And while this occurs, many artists, from whom the products being stolen originated, are making statements about what THEY think, which seems to differ greatly from what the record label companies think.

My take on things is that there are a lot of things wrong with the music and movie industries right now, and these wrongs have a truckload of side effects. One of these side effects is the intensity of illegal sharing of music and movie products.

Update: Coincidentally, the next post in his blog contains a quote from a person named Richard. Judging by the content, it should be clear that it is not the same person in any way, shape or form.