The grass is green.

I’ve probably spent billions of dollars on music, movies, and television shows from iTunes. Or close to that, at least. I’m not a fan, at all, of stealing the creative work of others. I also think the MPAA and the RIAA completely missed the digital boat about eight long years ago, and have spent ridiculous amounts of money, time, and goodwill trying to bring back to port a ship that sailed a long, long time ago. But I digress.

AT&T, née Ma Bell. She’s decided to join the MPAA and the RIAA in their efforts to go after song and movie burglars. Which means teenagers across the country who use AT&T DSL could suddenly have very red hands. This morning’s Los Angeles Times tells it like it is:

“AT&T is going to act like the copyright police, and that is going to make customers angry,” [Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a digital rights advocacy group] said. “The good news for AT&T is that there’s so little competition that where else are the customers going to go?”

Verizon Communications Inc., which has fiercely guarded the privacy of its customers, has refused so far to offer a network anti-piracy tool. It defeated in court the recording industry’s demands to reveal names of those allegedly involved in downloading pirated songs.

I think this part, though, hits the mole, err, nail right on the head:

The Recording Industry Assn. of America has engendered a barrage of criticism for its efforts at suing people who download copyrighted songs illegally and who trade in bootleg music CDs.

“They’ve tried the whack-a-mole approach, and I don’t think they’re winning,” Cicconi said.

Indeed, they’re not.

“The risk AT&T faces is fighting the last war by spending money and energy plugging an old hole in the wall when new ones are breaking out,” said Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Freedom Foundation.

While some of the intelligent/innovative folks in the industry are (thankfully) already moving towards liberating technologies like iTunes Plus, the RIAA, MPAA, and now AT&T want to sue a bunch of teenagers, grandmothers, and unemployed college students.

I don’t envy the situation the recording and movie industries find themselves in. But they haven’t made their jobs any easier, and they certainly aren’t making me feel sorry for them by keeping the bulk of the revenue from records and films and tossing the remaining ridiculously small amount to the actual artists. But moving beyond that, I think they need to play offense, not defense. And by offense, I don’t mean suing this lady and otherwise making fools of themselves.

What I find most bizarre about this is that AT&T has allowed itself to be roped in to this mess. It’s really all the cable companies needed… Another reason to convince people to abandon Ma Bell. I can hear Comcast, Charter, and Time Warner now… “Not only will we save you money, but we promise we won’t spy on you.”

All I can say is this: AT&T, you should’ve known better.