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It would be useful to know which content owners do and don't subscribe to this scheme, so I know which to boycott and which to support.

The only 2 I know of for sure are Fat Wreck Chords and Epitaph Records, though it seems Epitaph has been moving in the 'corporate whore' direction for a number of years (ironic, considering that the anti-establishment punk sensation Bad Religion is one of their top artists).

Regardless of anything else they do for an artist, the facts that matter to me as a consumer are: The RIAA believes that it deserves to make money on non-RIAA-members' music, they list non-member (seventh question down) labels as members, legally attack individuals without sufficient evidence, extort money from massive lists of people....basically, they're the mob.

There's nothing they can provide to me that makes it worth doing business with the mob.

One of the most successful independent punk bands ever, and the average cost of a cd on their site is $10.

That list is actually wrong. Fat Wreck Chords has said again and again that they are not a part of the RIAA, and the RIAA continues to list them. I'm pretty sure there are other labels in the same situation.

The Aquabats rock. Other nerd rockers I like are: Nerf Herder and Atom and His Package.

None More Black is a pretty good band, too...you should check 'em out.

You can now buy a 64 MB stick for 20 dollars from a German band who are (I think) the first to distribute a new single on USB Sticks. Plus, the USB stick has a fashionable design of the band's logo on it. It's a good band if you like Punk Rock and/or German.

One of their songs (written and sung in English)
A German song.

You can now buy a 64 MB stick for 20 dollars from a German band who are (I think) the first to distribute a new single on USB Sticks. Plus, the USB stick has a fashionable design of the band's logo on it. It's a good band if you like Punk Rock and/or German.

One of their songs (written and sung in English)
A German song.

I am a music geek and all the music I buy is pretty much vinyl. claiming "fair use" I download stuff to my ipod so I can listen to it in the car. I only buy CD's when it is stuff that I can't get on vinyl and can't find it to download. In the past year I've bought about 15 records and 4 cd's.
Not a single CD was an RIAA disc, and maybe 2 records were.
Prior to having a cd-burner/broadband, I would buy about 20 cd's a year, and about 1/3 third of those were purchased used.

Almost all independent labels worth their salt put their stuff out on vinyl. My favorites are Fat Wreck Chords, Jade Tree, and Springman.
You can also find mainstream stuff on vinyl. Recently I've picked up System of a Down, Radiohead and Sublime.
Best Buy and Wal-Mart of course, don't carry vinyl and they sell their cd's at pretty close to cost. The make it up by selling you CD players, and batteries to run your CD player. I buy most of my music at independent retailers like Amoeba Music or online. Most Independent labels sell full length records and cd's for $8-12.
Call me a thief(I have 50 gigs of mp3s), but I feel like I have supported artists who deserve it. I will never pay $18 or even $15 for a cd.

I find it disturbing that the RIAA is claiming it is acting on behalf of record labels that it doesn't even represent.

NPR radio has a story about several record labels (notably Fat Wreck Chords, one of my personal favs) that had to fight for years to get their names removed from the list of labels the RIAA claims to represent, since they do not want to be represented by them.

that's FAT Wreck Chords, owned by Fat Mike, of NOFX.

Good luck. The RIAA doesn't like to address real concerns, they like to blame the ones they made up. Right now their favorite target is online trading, but this will change. I'm waiting for the day the RIAA takes a firm anti-abortion stance. That fetal tissue was potentially a future consumer! The thoughtless actions of another deprived a lifetime's worth of revenure from that cluster of stem cells. That makes the parents, doctor, nurses, clinics, Jane Roe and the supreme court justices that sat on the bench in 1973 all liable for the hundreds of albums the person-to-be might have otherwise purchased. Sue 'em all!

On my own little rant here, I have a big problem with the term "theft" when referring to file swapping. Theft means that someone has been deprived of something. In the case of file swapping, the label can only argue the loss of potential revenue. When I was shopping for a TV, I was looking at a Panasonic and a Toshiba. Both of these companies had the potential revenue from a TV sale. I was only buying one TV, and I decided to go with the Panasonic in the end. Should Toshiba get all pissy because I deprived them of potential revenue? The proper term the RIAA should be using is "anti-trust". For the record, I don't swap online - I tend to get most of my music from MP3.com and www.fatwreck.com (a great indie punk-rock label). And even then, I tend to buy the CD's of the stuff I really like. That's one great advantage of the type of music I listen to - there's a misc artist collection of punk called "Hopelessly Devoted To You" with MANY volumes. Each one has ~25 tracks, and costs about $5 (taxes in). There's lots of other examples, too. General rule for me: If it ain't worth the scratch to own legit, it ain't worth the drive space. There are a few exceptions, but the RIAA wouldn't be making any money off them anyway (either indie bands or stuff that has been off the market for too long to buy). And to think, I wouldn't have even known there was all this GOOD STUFF out there had it not been for Naptser. Hey, I WAS in high school when it came out, you gotta cut me some slack.

The Loss of Revenue part got me thinking. A few ways to give the RIAA the finger:
1. Go to the shows. Support bands that come through your town. if you like the show, buy a tshirt or other merchandise. this is where most minor bands (that're indie or in the mainstream) make their money.
2. Buy vinyl. I only buy analogue, since most labels supporting the vinyl are indies and therefore non-RIAA. In case you get an RIAA-vinyl, you can still rejoice in better value/qualitylfie expectancy. This is becuz a CD will just stop working on you (as with a good 50 of the 450 CDs i own)
3. Support indies. Independent labels will usually have more equal distribution of funds, becuz they dont spend XX million $ promoting Britney/christina/eminem and all the other pop stars, and neglect their other artists. They have to wait for you to discover them, and you should, becuz tomorrows great artist will come from the underground labels, not the marketing machine of the RIAA. Besides, Roadrunner, Epitaph, Fat Wreck Chords all offer free mp3s of their artists. Hobby Industries and its kin in electronic music also offer free sampling of the records, Hobby streaming its entire catalogue. So whatever you flavour, theyve got some treats for you.
Try it. Let the RIAA die and wither, we dont need them.

The punk mentality has paid-off in some situations. Look at Epitaph or Fat Wreck Chords. Not only are they highly sucessful, but are good to the bands. And, the bands are good to the fans.

I knew that there were plenty of good bands that go indie, but I never thought they actually earned more than the commercial guys.

Also check out Fat Wreck Chords if punk is you thing. Lots of good MP3 downloads available.

Dude, you didn't already have SM4SP? Man, you're lame ;--)

At the end of the day, who'd want to pay a buck a track for something as non-permanent as an mp3 track? I reckon that the reason why ppl in general refuse to pay for mp3s is, if u hit two buttons on the keyboard, its gone. even tho more behaviour from RIAA like this should be encouraged, a p2p system with subscription still seems more feasible to me - suppose you pay $15 for unlimited downloads of music. i havent checked the numbers, but i would imagine that the money saved from packaging/distribution should more than make up for the lower income. How difficult can it be to monitor which songs are downloaded and pay artists accordingly? And ppl will pay the subscription fee if theyre guaranteed high quality content. But how come that the guys at Epitaph , Fat wreck and Roadrunner as the only ones have found out that while selling mp3s is possibly not a great idea, its great for promotion. "How you remind me" by Nickelback was put out as a free mp3. Gold and platinum records started streaming in and international success for the band is a fact. Not bad for an independent label.

Unless you want obscure stuff. If i hear that XYZ indie punk band has a great album...I want to hear what they sound like before i buy it...

I listen to punk music and have always enjoyed the openness of the companies that sell the music for non-fans and fans alike to listen before buying. Most indie labels have inexpensive samplers or online mp3 download segments from artists. I listen to many obscure punk bands, and almost always there was a venue to hear them before buying. Toxic shock had the Shock Report with floppy 7" recording samplers. Notes in Thrasher Magazine was an excellent review resource. Flipside had samplers. Nowadays you have The Fat Club or Punk-O-Rama. Cheap CD offerings where you get about 10 to 15 different bands showcased. Enjoy!

Or sign to a non-RIAA label.

There are plenty ...

the label is run by the singer of NoFX, pretty much the only band whose built a pretty large fanbase despite outright refusing any major label/mtv/radio support. He's said his philosophy is that he only puts out "what he thinks is good, not if it'll sell or not." as opposed to the major label mentality of "your music is shit, but we'll put it out anyway because it'll sell." Of course, if you're not into punk music, you're going to have to look elsewhere. I'm sure there are enough people in most of the genres that could form independant labels like that.

Did you know that Fat Wreck Chords is a member of the RIAA? Shocking eh?

Fat Wreck are the label for a whole pile of anti-establishment bands, including IIRC Less Than Jake. One of Fat Wreck's artists did that track "Sell Out".

-1, garbled

Bands like Propagandhi, who used to be on the Fat label, have moved off to start their own indie labels. Check out the G-7 Welcoming Committee.

These days I avoid the record stores completely and find my music online. My label of choice is Fat Wreck Chords. It's a punk rock label that's managed to be extremely succesful without any corporate involvement. They charge $10 sor CDs including shipping and handling, which is a lot more reasonable than the $16-18 one would be charged elsewhere.

Just my little contribution to bringing the RIAA down... if you enjoy punk rock I'd give these guys a whirl... they even have full-length mp3's. :)

Cheers!

Ok, I guess not.

What do I do, when it seems I relate to Judas more than You?

Naw. It only takes this long for the inexperienced. You can start off on audiogalaxy looking for a particular band and then run into sites with hundreds of cds in the same genre. I only do this maybe a couple of hours a month and I have a pretty big collection. I have a 200+ legit cd collection to supplement this as well, though I won't pretend like I'm only downloading mp3's before buying cd's (though I do this frequently). Sometimes there are just one or two good songs on cd's but they aren't worth the 18-22 CDN. It is nice downloading and listening to future releases (usually 3 weeks - 1.5 months before their actual store release).

Note that the recording industry hasn't seen profits tail off as mp3's became popular. I'm not advocating piracy "because I think it doesn't hurt anyone", or "because all those musicians are incredibly overpaid" -- but seriously, they should overstate the effect mp3's has. I have all the cd's of my favorite bands. All my friends who frequently pirate music as well have vast cd collections that are in the hundreds to thousands.
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