Are you ready to... Boycott the RIAA?

[Mike]

For those that support file sharing, don't like the RIAA, or want to help make a difference:

August 1st and 2nd are hopefully going to be the bigger days of the campaign.

We're wanting to co-ordinate fax campaigns to our legislators, phone campaigns to our legislators

I already have several letters/faxes drafted up and ready to be sent. Slowly but surely I am finding my local reps and legislators and other politicians that can get the letters.

Boycott-RIAA
Politician contact- Minor list
August 1st and 2nd

Boycott-RIAA is a fairly informative site. They have letters that you can customize and are pretty much ready to be sent out. (Just have to add your name)

I doubt the RIAA will stop, but hopefully they don't want to keep filing law suits against University students.

By no means do I want to promote people getting torches and burning down buildings or anything. I just simply want people to do what they can and show support.

[CubKid]

Right on. Im doing my part.

Synapseskip
Date: July 20, 2003 @ 3:56 PM
Oh this industry
that is twisting my arm
step on my liberties
wishing me only harm

If only you knew
If only you saw
that making a martyr
makes emotions run raw

You were Once the Goliath
but now you will fall
at the hands of millions of Davids
who are very appalled

Greetings all, just joined up today. Good to see an organization with an agenda that's worthwhile. Don't stop downloading, continue this Civil Disobediance.

Link

This was taken from an article over at Boycott RIAA. Its too true.

[Siliconjunkie]

I already do as much as possible. I don't listen to commercial radio much (usually NPR). Haven't bought a CD in years.

[Chuckiechan]

If you write to politicians, be sure to staple a $100.00 bill to your letter!

[dunbar]

Does this make sense? You might have to think a while before it comes clear.

I have not purchased a commercial CD for nearly 3 years - I only download MP3s, and I'm getting my MP3s from the artists' themselves (their websites, not P2P). The download function on a website is a delivery method, the artists work is delivered free of charge to my computer.

I only download works which I can copy all I want to copy - if the artist says no copying, I leave it alone.

Am I not already boycotting the RIAA, when I refuse to acquire the overprotected works?

IMO, issues of copyright are about all that the RIAA can 'enforce' with laws, so as long as I stay away from works which are copyrighted (specifically, by copyright, I mean copyrighted in such a way as to exclude my user rights to change file formats and change storage mediums), I believe I'm all set.

I say let the artists and/or the 'record labels' place any kind(s) of restrictions they could want on any song/video/whatever - I could care less about why they do it, but I will personally honor any such unfavorable restrictions with my simple refusal to obtain the restricted works, because the restrictions affect my intended personal use. That is my spin, but I'm not usually feeling like I'm missing out on something when I leave this kind of idiocy untouched.

Let the RIAA learn the hard way - the consumer decides what is acceptable. If the 'industry' goes in the toilet because we all refuse to put ourselves into these types of legal issues which the RIAA is chasing, they will stifle their own industry with their efforts. I've always been able to transfer songs from one medium to another (wax cylinders onto reel to reel, reel to reel into WAV format, etc. Once I purchase the product, it is mine to use until I die.

But maybe I missed something along the way?

[Epidemic]

Amazing when people will support a medium which is almost completely there for stealing. And get mad at the people who try to protect what is theirs.

I truely hope that some of you have a project stolen at work or buy something in order to make a profit and someone steals it from you.

I am so offended that otherwise enlightened good solid citizens will suddenly defend (open theft of property from others)

Go ahead and boycot RIAA. Perhaps you will get lucky and put a few music stores out of business. At least you will end their suffering at the hands of music pirates of the world.

More power to RIAAs battle against the scumm bag pirates of the world. Start jailing them and tracing those IP addresses. And start handing out fines and 1 year sentences.

This is just a little sign of the moral decline in western culture. There are the cliches which are used (no one is hurt) or (it is a big company) will be the undoing of our culture.

When you can openly say your support criminal acts and the likes.



I mean I just wonder what makes pirates tick, (not really because it is obvious that they are selfish and self serving people who believe life should be handed to them (examples of the me generation)) they make empty excuses like the artist was not getting all that much money anyway, "so I am not hurting them", I am not stealing since the info is out there and they had to work no harder to produce what I am enjoying.

Well if the artist is not making all that much money offer to buy it from them directly. Take what they give you for free. But stealing copywrited material is just absolutely wrong, incorrect, criminal, and hurts people.

[Mike]

Alright Epidemic.. I am going to just pretend that you put just a small bit of thought into your post and hey I will even pretend it makes sense.

Several problems with some of your suggestions: The first thing? Our legal system is already cluttered enough and now the RIAA has already submitted about a thousand subpoenas (and planning on doing more every day)

Let's put these "scumm bag pirates" in prison for a year or so. I won't mention who will probably be one of the first to whine that more tax payers' dollars are being wasted to send a kid that downloaded music to jail for a year. (Also the fact that this many criminal trials wouldn't be good for our justice system)

I have a couple problems with the RIAA is the fact that they are randomly chasing down people nationwide (innocent or not) I have heard quite a few stories where the RIAA threatens a major University to only find out later that whatever they were complaining about had absolutely NOTHING to do with MP3's or any file sharing. Another problem with the RIAA? The fact that they are chasing down college students and making them turn over their life savings.

Yes, these "scumm bag pirates" are horrible people. They don't really go out and buy a CD do they? That thought is completely ludicrous isn't it?
If it wasn't for programs like Kazaa or Napster I wouldn't have went to the store to buy quite a few CD's that I have laying around the house right now.
Do you want examples? Alright well let me list some of them:

Timo Maas
Crystal Method
The Chemical Brothers
The Prodigy
Propellerheads

*EDIT* Moral decline of Western nations? Riiight... I really figured you would be more interested on how middle school kids can easily obtain tobacco/marijuana.

[skuz]

I am already, but unwillingly. There is no new american music that suits my tastes, so I get my stuff from Europe, the RIAA doesn't see a penny from me and I have good music. Sometimes legally, sometimes not.

My latest CD came directly from Finland, no intermediates.

[RayH]

There is an assumption that if people don't get the music for free, they'll buy it. Maybe they'll just do without.

The recording industry believes that downloading is hurting sales. Maybe sales have already peaked and downloading is creating sales. Maybe the sales being created is for other stuff.

When the TV blackout was lifted on the NFL, the owners thought they were going to go broke. NFL is more popular. They make more money off the freeloaders from TV than from the stadium sales.

There are tremendous money in residual rights. Microsoft paid $12 million to use the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" for the theme of Windows 95! If the Stones didn't make a penny in sales, they made $12 million on the residual.

Freeloading keeps the interest up. The RIAA regularly gives away its music to radio stations and other "promotional" outlets. They just don't see downloading as promotional.

A lot of the stuff I downloaded from Napster was UNAVAILABLE, though still copyrighted. A lot of out of print stuff got put up.

Is there a corralation between Napster and the resurgance of Doo Wop? You know, on PBS and now offered on TV ads? The music was unavailable. Fully one-third of the Napster users were over 50!!!

We old timers were downloading music that was UNAVAILABLE!!!!! We couldn't buy it at any price and it wasn't being played on radio because some marketing idiots thought there was no market for it!

[pickel]

Another example is Disney. I went to the Disney store to pick up a copy ( DVD or VHS ) of Bamby for my grand daugther and guess what ... it's not available. They selectively offer these classics on a rotational release. I'm sure I could have found a copy and made a copy, but to a four year old it was just a fleeting thought. Now I don't buy anything from Disney. If a company will not offer thier products universaly, on their choosing, I donot need to deal with them. Same goes for the RIAA and any other big entity that has their agenda instead of the comsumer.