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Several Boycotts Of RIAA Organizing
There are numerous grassroots efforts coming together to Boycott the RIAA. I've decided that
I won't be buying any RIAA CDs for awhile personally (I've already cancelled a couple of orders, and I buy a ton of CDs) but decide for yourself. Should peer-to-peer file sharing be legal or not on the Internet? Should companies like Google and Yahoo be held legally responsible for the content that they index? Meanwhile, the OpenNAP servers and Gnutella are proving that the genie is out of the bottle and while this lawsuit may set a huge legal precedent, it won't help the RIAA in the real world.
They should really work with napster since there already is significant market share and potential for revenue. Gnutella and its kin won't have any centralized point.
Yesterday on CNN Headline News they stated that "studies have shown" that Napster users (or was it MP3 users?) tend to buy more music. I can attest to that.
I have been preaching for years how mp3's have facilitated the buying of better music for me. The thing is... and I wish the record companies realized this... I've actually bought cd's that I would -not- have bought otherwise if I had not been exposed to the music via mp3 first. I've downloaded songs out of curiosity then fell in love with the band and then bought multiple cd's by the artist. But just try to convince the record companies that it actually works this way!
I would be willing to pay for single-song downloads so long as they weren't any more money than a cassette single. I'd even pay for an entire cd via mp3 so long as it was a decent price. But so far these processes are not the norm, although it would save the record companies and artists the costs of a middle man and the media (cd or cassette) and they'd make more profit.
But no, the record companies are using "piracy" as an excuse to strip the rights of the individual because they are AFRAID.
Just like the DVD thing: They're not afraid of us copying the DVD's (it's not worth the trouble or the money). They just want to control what device we watch it on (devices produced by people who paid for the rights first). Thus aleinating Linux users, etc.
Did dual cassette decks or blank cassette tapes get outlawed? No. The public was -trusted- to obey copyright laws, and for the most part they did. Obviously! The recoding industry didn't crumble as soon as recordable cassettes came out.
The RIAA and other groups like it have to realize that they will keep customers if they respect them. This is why I support the boycotts, and agree with the statement at http://boycott-riaa.com/ that THE FANS control the music industry.
If the RIAA fights us on this, we will find other ways arond the issue and continue to do things behind their back, FOR FREE and they will lose out. If they give us respect and freedom by giving us the chance to use this new technology to it's fullest while obeying copyright laws at least as well as we did with cassettes, then they could make life easier and more fun for listeners, AND make more than a few bucks here and there by embracing this new technology and offering nice clean mp3 downloads for a small fee... heck, even via Napster!
But so far these stuffed-suits don't seem to be smart enough to see it this way.
$0.02
its kinda funny really...
all ya'll are allways bitching about (for example) people not reading the fine print when they buy computers, and then compalining that they sould have known the actuall cost that was spelled out in the contract (with a little math)
same deal with the record industry!!!
have you ever seen a record contract? it spells out exactly what are the streams of revenue for the artist, what the record company keeps, other fees, etc...
this is why professional musicians have business managers... people who look at the record contract and determine the revenue, then deduct what the record company keeps, what the agent keeps... etc....
the artist (unless he/she has an incompitent business manager) is then told "you will have $n in revenu this year if you sell this many albums and play to this many people, otherwise, with this other set of figures you will $n2 in your pocket"
yes, record companies are asses, but really, people who are worried about getting screwed should voice those concerns durring contract negotiation, not after they spend more money than they can expect to have
and in the case of toni braxton, if she had two platinum albums, she should have had enough clout to make her concerns meaningful, if she bothered to mention them
But the pimp is illegal and the dating service isn't! That's the point.
kwsNI
In the US, at least, computer CDR's are tax free, because when the law was passed, they didn't count on computers being used to burn music CD's. Computer CDR's are down to, like, 50 cents a piece, and not a penny of that goes to the assholes in the recording industry.
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Stephen C. VanDahm
Grateful Dead fans have been doing exactly that for years and years. Basically, the Dead allowed their fans to tape their shows and trade them freely. It was one of the big reasons for their enormous popularity. There are a lot of newer bands that have taken the same attitude. Phish, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and countless other bands allow you to freely trade tapes (and now CDR's) of their concerts. The best way to get hooked up with their music is by going to http://www.etree.org and subscribing to the mailing lists.
I love E-Tree. I've downloaded and burned dozens and dozens of excellent live shows that I never would have been able to hear if it weren't for the loose network of fans that make this kind of stuff possible.
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Stephen C. VanDahm
Of course, many news servers don't have an alt.mp3 hiearchy. Seems a lot of sysadmins don't like binary newsgroups. You could try getting after your sysadmin to include them, I suppose. Or start looking for an internet service that does.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I can imagine the headline:
RIAA: United States Postal Service a Tool for Piracy
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Stephen C. VanDahm
And shouldn't AOL be held accountable for the files and information it's users transfer?
--
here: http://www.riaa.org/Contact.cfm
I mean, just stopping buying CDs isn't going to do it, we need some kind of way to elt them know that we're consciously choosing not to buy CDs because of their lameness quotient.
As I've posted before, my music budget has more than tripled (according to quicken) since napster came out. So they're definitely shooting themselves on this one.
Kinda like sending in the warranty card when you buy a "linux supported" game with LINUX written all over it, we need some way to let them know when and why we're not buying the CDs.
Any suggestions?
I've been using Napster, but mostly because the RIAA doesn't provide a real alterntive. I would be willing to pay, say, a buck a song (like on emusic) rather than using Napster -- if the option were available. In other words, yes, I think what people are doing on Napster is illegal (although, Napster itself isn't ;) -- but, in some sense justified. --tim
you'll boycott the RIAA, but not the MPAA (going to see X-Men).. what's the logic behind this? Not a troll, I'm really curious.. is Napster more important to you than DeCSS?
BilldaCat
I thought that the judge's decision was for Napster to block all copyrighted songs from their network, and when they replied that it would be technically infeasible to do this, the judge told them that was the position they put themselves in. I think that Napster has to comply with the judge's ruling, and the only technical way they can do this because of their architecture is to shut down.
The RIAA didn't request to shut down Napster. They wanted to stop it from being used to distribute copyrighted songs.
Ralph
I tell a friend in the next room "Check this out" and play a song for him. Fair use?
I lend someone a CD. Fair use? They make a tape of it? Fair use?
I send a net.friend a mp3 file over the internet and say "Here, check this out!" Fair use?
I send a net.friend an entire CD in MP3 format over the internet. Fair use? They make a tape of it. Fair use?
I rip a CD to MP3 format so I don't have to shuffle CDs. Fair use?
I record a song off the radio, make an MP3 of it and send it to a friend. Fair use?
I decide that CD I bought last month really sucks and sell it at a used CD store. Fair use?
Now lets get into the fun ones.
I have the chance to download a song or concert which I would not have heard otherwise. Fair use?
I have the chance to download an album that's been out of publication for a decade. Fair use?
I have a chance to download a southpark episode that aired last week on comedy central. Fair use? With the commercials stripped out? Left in?
I have a chance to download a bit of Anime that only ever showed in Japan, between the years of 1970 and 1975. Fair use?
I have the chance to download the text of a book that I read as a child. The author died 15 years ago and the book has been out of print for almost two decades. Fair use?
As has been pointed out, the ROMS to many games we played during the '80s will soon die. Is preserving them fair use?
I could probably come up with some more examples. The RIAA or MPAA would tell us that under current law, most of my examples are stealing. I think many people would agree that many of these examples are not stealing, especially in the cases where there was no possible way that I'd be able to get the content otherwise.
What I think we need is a fairly major reform of current copyright law, enumerating exactly what you buy when you purchase a copyrighted item, exactly what rights you have and what rights the publisher has. I think the time limits on copyrights and patents need to be moved way down. Copyright is already causing important content that was generated in the past few decades tob e lost. This is NOT the way these laws were supposed to work.
Spelling everything out is the only way these problems will ever go away.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I don't believe there are 175,000 readers of Slashdot, but hey, saying so will get you some good banner advertisers.
Most of the replies I got some up the real problem; there are not enough people here to make a dent. Oh, it's fun to run outside and rally around the flag and shout curse words at the major record labels. But people lose their interest and move on.
Why?
Because this is not about life and death. It is not a direct cost to you. Oh sure, you can say indirectly this affects you because you don't think it is fair to pay 15 bux for a CD and only 1 of those dollars goes to the artist and the rest to some universally despised, nameless, "fatcat" corporation. Guess those "starving artists" - and I say that with more sarcasm than truth - should have read those contracts.
Try protesting something really important, like people starving, corrupt, murderous governments, polluters, spouse abusers, or child stalkers.
Record companies? Please.
This protest will last until Taco or Roblimo have to get the latest "Last Who Live CD".
the artists I love would give away their music for free, but they choose not to
It's not their music anymore. Say I make a thousand pirate copies of, ehrm, let's say Britney Spears albums. I promptly call her up, and tell her I'm pirating her music, and dare her to sue me.
She can't. She doesn't hold the copyright, her label does. Music became a work for hire, not distribution. Sign a contract, and even if it doesn't grant the company copyright to the songs, they still own every line, and your name, and your likeness, and quite possibly your genetic material. (They claim any publically recognized personal trait as theirs)
She couldn't even give it away for free if she wanted to. Shit, she couldn't sue me for BritneySpearsSucksMyDickOnDVD.com, she doesn't own her name.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Stopping Napster actually helps destroy the old world model which is based on centralising distribution. Napster is more of a commercial interest and works on this centralised model, whereas Gnutella is a truely decentralised peer to peer approach that accomodations not just music, but other forms of media as well.
You could - in some ways - see Gnutella as an early form of an 'Eternity' service - because as more people use the service, the content increasingly becomes highly distributed and massively redundant - and therefore tends to live forever, and is hard to remove. Music is the ideal medium for this to start with, because just about everyone listens to music.
The RIAA looks like it is trying to protect the old world of the middle man doing the distribution work. This is dead. The new world is where the technological framework does the distribution work. There is no middle man, because the middle man is replaced by technology.
Promotion may still need to occur, to provide incentives for people to try out and listen to new works, but that promotion should happen around the new decentralised and distributed framework.
Irrespective of what security mechanisms the music industry tries to put into recorded music, there is now a whole globe out their focused on breaking it. Once the security is broken -- just like how just about every commercial software in history has been cracked -- and the music is put into this distributed web, then it is virtually unstoppable.
Rather than fight against piracy and copy -- which has _always_ existed -- perhaps the smart thing to do is embrace free copy, and change the business model, to make money out of performances, merchandise, special releases or whatever other things can be thought of. Piracy and copy has always been the most significant and most popular way of distributing media - but until now it has been ignored and marginalised and a lot of time and energy has gone into eradicating it - what a waste! Better to find a new approach to distribution that embraces free copy, but makes money in other ways.
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
Actually, RIAA doesn't believe those people are buying CDs now.
I don't buy CD's now, and I don't go to movies, either. I'm not as absolute about movies, though - I have a ton of free Blockbuster rental coupons I'm still using (from a giveaway when I bought my DVD player last year), and I borrow DVD's from my local library, too. I won't pay for them until the DeCSS lawsuit is either thrown out by the court or dropped by the plaintiffs.
Not that I spent a ton of money on rentals or going to the movies before the lawsuit, but I'm trying to be consistent. without movies, I watch even less TV than I did before - my television viewing nowadays is pretty much confined to local news, Red Sox games, and WWF Smackdown (even though Fox carries the Sox and Paramount carries the WWF).
It's tough to live your whole life in a vacuum, though, even if you try. I wish there were more independent places to get music and film, but maybe that'll be one of the things that comes out of all this legal wrangling that's going on.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
You make a very good point: 99% of the MP3's that I download never make (or will never make) the top 10.
However, what are we to do when restrictions are placed on FTP, newsgroups or other services? Are we required to prove that the software (or plaintext or whatever) we are transmitting is not bound by any copyright law merely to protect those that are providing the service?
Just a thought...
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
I saw in the paper today a quote from the representatives of the RIAA seeking the injunction.
"Napster is teaching kids today that music has little intrinsic value"
While Napster indeed allows the trading of RIAA artists' music, it is the RIAA which is devaluing music. A while ago I read a good essay on /. about the abstraction of the artist from the art, citing Britney Spears as a prime example. Well, guess what RIAA, your marketing has come back to haunt you. Spears is just one of many, all of whom have one common characteristic: their music is the same. It doesn't matter what artists you listen to, as long as the music is popular and has a beat, who cares? Kids today will listen to anything the RIAA puts in the top 40, do you think they could care less who it is? It is apparent that a side-effect of abstracting the art from the artist is, the artist is expendable. If you can switch artists ard without changing the music, then what value does the artist have? None. Good job RIAA, you've dug your own grave.
As for the boycott, I will continue to do as I always have, I will buy only those albums which I have heard and which I enjoy all of. I do not buy albums which have 1 or 2 good songs. Never have and never will. There are certain artists I will buy and support without question, but I can count those on one hand. For the rest, if I don't hear their album, I don't buy it.
"I live in a world of make-believe, with faeries and leprechauns and tiny little frogs with funny hats."
Anyone who has mp3's downloaded from Napster should now repent -- send your mp3's back to the RIAA and tell them you've deleted them from your hard disk. Send them by email, or through the post on floppy/CD-R/Zip/DAT, etc.
by post:
RIAA
1330 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036
by email: (report piracy email address) -- cdreward@riaa.com
You might also want to pick up the phone and call them... tell them you wish to send your mp3's back and ask where to send them.
Telephone: (202) 775-0101
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
Which will prompt said artists to choose a different distribution model (like emusic.com).
TMBG has done it. Seems to be doing rather well.
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
Not at all. If anyone thinks Gnutella can't be stopped, you are sadly mistaken. The only question is whether "they" will choose to stop it.
The decentralized nature of Gnutella would make it trivial to launch DOS attacks. If the music industry wanted to shut it down, they would just have to have various clients return garbage to queries, send nonsense messages, etc. Yes, future Gnutella clients could have some protections built in, but it's an arms race Gnutella would lose.
"Yeah, but I could just set up private networks among my friends." Sure you could, and then the music industry wins. They don't care about you sharing with your friends, they care about mass, anonymous sharing.
My only question is whether they would choose to do it.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
When you think about it, there weren't all THAT many people using Napster at the same time. Users were redirected to one of many load-balanced servers, with a pre-set capacity. The servers were not networked at all, so your search results were limited to whoever was on the same server as yourself.
A service like Gnutella (not GNUtella, as it's not made by any free software people) is decentralized so that you can become a node in a network of potentially infinite size. Of course, the fact that so many packets are going around makes latency a horrible burden to bear, so it's easy to get downloads that run at miserably slow speeds. (And don't even think about getting more than 1 KB/sec if you're running it on a dial-up connection.)
For more information, click here.
Heck, record your faourite songs off the radio.
Or just use Streamripper. It records songs off Shoutcast stations. Not only that, it places them in individual Mp3 files and names them. All perfectly legal under the fair use broadcast recording laws.
Well.. 2 points.
You can get your favourite songs, the equivalent of multiple cd's on single tapes. Not the greatest thing, i know. I wouldn't imagine the kickback to be as high.
You can buy imported blanks
You can follow kearbear's suggesetion (its in this thread) of using streamstripper...
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
All parties in this issue are looking out for their own interests exclusively. Users don't want to lose a service they enjoy, and the RIAA wants to preserve their industry. In both cases it is about their respective bottom lines. I don't believe either side is truely able to give enough of themselves to put the Artist first. The Artists will end up deciding the outcome. Right now the RIAA has them in hand, but perhaps if they felt the effects of a boycott, they would be more willing to break the chains that bind them.
I envision a model where I can download songs from a band's official website. The mass market will not care to deal with shady ftp searches, warez sites, or even morally (legally?) ambiguous peer to peer networks, if a simple and reliable method for direct purchase of an mp3. We need the artists to buy into this vision, hence the boycott.
But, it has already been said numerous times on Slashdot that the RIAA takes such a large percentage, the artists don't get any significant amount of money off of CD sales. They make all their money on concerts instead. Saying "we don't make much money off of your purchases" is a clearly false statement. Considering the insignificant cost of producing a CD and the percentage which goes to the artist, your profit margin on CDs makes up nearly all of the cost. Thus, I presume that this post is merely a futile attempt to stop a boycott that has already started, using the misinformation and propoganda that are the trademarks of both the RIAA and MPAA. Except we're not the mass market. We don't take things at face value.
The reason for a boycott is to show a company that they will actually make MORE money if the accede to your demands. The problem is, the RIAA WON'T make more money this way. How could they possibly be making more money than they already are?
Let's say they adopt some kind of downloadable, micropayment system where you pay $1/song. That's slightly LESS than you are paying for songs right now PLUS they don't force you to buy the whole CD to get the one song. So they lose money there.
Even worse (for them), suppose we got what we really wanted: IP reform. We'd be able to trade songs with each other legally--and the RIAA would lose even more money.
No, boycott will do nothing because our demands essentially castrate the RIAA. They are fighting for their lives.
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Give us our karma back! Punish Karma Whores through meta-mod!
Linux MAPI Server!
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RIAA is not *creating* music.
The RIAA is misusing copyrights though. I don't have a problem with paying an artist for a CD. I do have a problem with supporting the cartel that is the RIAA. They are using their copyrights in an effort to control the industry, which is illegal.
Artists should be just as outraged at the RIAA as I am. Its obvious that the RIAA is not protecting artists, but their cartel. Online music has bosted sales of CD's, I myself by more, and different types of music since I've been listenting to MP3's, which is a good thing unless you're interested in maintaining a cartel.
A good artist doesn't need the RIAA any more. The distribution channels are there for online music, but the RIAA doesn't want this because they loose everything. So they're doing anything they can do to slow the progression so they can keep up. This is anti-competitive. You can't use copyrights to do this.
Not everyone steals from the music industry. Although I think what the industry does to the musicians is wrong (and shutting down Napster is wrong, they should get the pirates instead), I still don't steal from them. I will boycott, however.
IANAL, but I play one on
They (the RIAA) hate that, too. They'd make it illegal to buy and sell used CDs if they could.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Napster has become a billion-dollar business by making it very easy to copy copyritten works. My feelings about copyright are that it should last *maybe* 8 years or so. But this is a country of laws and the judge had no choice but to follow the law - and shut down Napster, hard.
I can't cry for them. They are a company built on an a-moral business model. But I can cry for the internet.
Soon, it may be illegal to post links to illegal material at all. I have nothing against scour, alta-vista, and yahoo who only link to illegal mp3s. Sure, they are as agnostic as napster, making it easy to download mp3s, whether they are copyrighted or not. Legal or not.
The future of the internet is in jeapordy. Soon everything objectionable on the internet will be walled off. This will, of course, section off the internet. It will be illegal to link to porn, music, or stolen software. That means that places like breast cancer resource sites, copyright-free music, and free software will all suffer hard.
Is there a way to stop it? To boycott those who are causing this? No. WE are causing it, by putting so much effort into creating new ideas that we want disseminated and to own at the same time. The future will closely resemble the past, with guilds controlling complete sections of the economy, enforced by law. My suggestion, therefore, is to join a guild.
-Ben
Napster as an application falls way short on what it should be. Yeah, yeah, the disclaimers and user agreements are fine and I believe it is the individual who is ultimately responsible for criminal behavior. I can print books on how to make bombs, I can describe a hundred and one ways to kill someone, but in the end it is the individual who takes the action that is criminal.
With that being said, I want a better solution. Gnutella and FreeNet have their problems, technologically and morally. I still believe, no matter what, that if you want to have a song(story,picture) to listen to(read,look at)over and over, the artist(writer,photographer) who created that song(story,picture) deserves compensation.
This implies to me that any solution developed needs to incorporate the artists. The means the first step is to make sure the artist owns the copyright on the recording not the recording company. Then that artist agrees to distribute their work via a network.
I, the user, buy into the network. I get to put as much money as I want to with a minimum within reason (say $5). Everytime I download a song, my account is deducted a reasonable price, $.75 to $1.50. Even better, the artist sets a base price for each song and let market forces fluctuate the song. For every N downloads a song gets its price increases so it eventually finds its true market value. Unknown artists can set their songs at $0 and allow people to have it for free and see if the market will increase the price.
The money collected from the download is given to the artist. The network makes money to cover its costs much in the same way PayPal gets its money, by doing short term investments with the money people put into their accounts.
As I said, I am snowballing here and I don't know the viability of any of this. I also know MP3.com has done similar things so this isn't truly a new idea but a simplification of existing ideas coupled with a Napster user's desire for instant gratification with little hassle.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
This article at Salon should put your mind at ease. It talks about the landmark case, and reiterates what has been said here: if Napster goes down, it's phenomenon on the Internet will get stronger.
It's only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything...
To whom it may concern,
It is with grave concern that I (and many other music lovers) watch the current legal proceedings between your organization and Napster. I feel that the RIAA's actions in this matter have been premature and based on a flawed understanding of the nature of Napster's service to its users.
I enjoy the use of Napster because it allows me to "try before I buy", albeit through unofficial channels. I can think of several CD's that I have purchased after downloading songs from Napster - songs that were _not_ getting heavy rotation on the radio. I do not "steal" whole CD's worth of music using this service, simply because I enjoy owning a physical copy of the music, with liner notes, and pictures of the band, and a disc that I can play without turning on my computer. Therefore, using Napster will never cause me to not buy a CD that I would otherwise buy.
It is with great regret that I must now refrain from purchasing discs by RIAA-represented artists, as a form of protest over the shutting-down of Napster. I guess I will probably miss some good CD's that I was looking forward to buying, but I would miss Napster more, should you succeed in permanently eliminating it. Thank you.
Freedom: "I won't!"
How many SlashDot users/readers are there? Realistically? A few hundred?
I don't download MP3's or use Napster. My choice. I would rather bang on pots and pans than listen to most of the music out there. But then, that's my opinion.
But if you really want to boycott someone, stop preaching to the choir and involve the majority.
"I am not gonna buy my 15 CD's this year"
What a waste of time. Get a few thousand, die-hard, CD-buying fiends to quit buying CD's. Convince club DJ's to stop buying more music. Convince radio stations to quit playing anymore new music. Get sympathy, if possible, from the people who make up those million sales for Brittainy, N'Sink and whoever.
"I am write a letter to my Congressman"
That is exactly the wrong way to go about it.
Write to the advertisers on the radio station whose format you enjoy. Tell them you will no longer listen to the stations they advertise on.
Write to record labels and include copies of receipts for the last year or so.
Stop listening to the radio.
Stop listening to CD's.
Stop buying, borrowing or downloading music.
And have the millions who buy the teen-scream, underpants crowd do the same.
"I am gonna download as much music as I can"
Good. Those numbers will be seen not as a protest, but as validity for what the recording industry thinks of you: You are not rebels but thieves and vandals trying to loot a few more songs before the impending shakedown.
Do them one better. Do not listen to, record, buy, borrow or download any more of their music.
Oh, and convince the "millions of people who do not use the Internet/MP3 technology regularly, and listen to the radio for their music" crowd to do the same.
Otherwise, this is a waste of time. But hey, you will have your principals.
Check out your local Goodwill or other non-profit type store. I go to the one by my house every once in a while. CDs are usually around $1.50 each and there is some decent stuff too.
Heck, I even bought a Sinclair ZX-81 there a few months ago for $10.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The RIAA does not care.
Really? I had a look at a number of other posts by you, for example here, here, here, here, and here. The last is rather interesting, in which someone accuses you of being an RIAA plant and you respond by admitting you are a troll.
Based on the content of your messages, it appears that that is all you are. In the unlikely event that you do work for the RIAA (and are a plant) I find it amusing that the RIAA would invest time and money discouraging a boycott they "don't care about." It is far more likely that you have succeeded in trolling slashdot very well this day, even getting a high +5 score doing it. There is no shortage of extreme Randian cynics on this site, and your post obviously appealed to some of them. Congrats.
(And shame on you pitiful fools who think it is somehow cool and worldly to espouse cynicism, apathy, and capitulation over standing up for your ideals.)
Where we make the money is in the Top 10 records - the stuff that most Slashdot readers (and other concerned citizens) don't listen to. We don't make much money off of your purchases. We make the money in the mass market. And by and large, the mass market doesn't care about your boycott.
First, that isn't true at all (and this exposes you as a simple troll and not an RIAA plant/spokesperson/whatever). The music industry makes a great deal of money on music of various genres which are not top ten. If they didn't, they would have no compunction in ceasing production of the material and killing the artists' careers. Such is standard operating procedure in the industry.
Furthermore, successful boycotts are almost never "mass market actions," they are activist actions taken by a minority. However, even a very small minority can make enough of an impact to threaten the bottom line, and this is as true with the RIAA as it is with anyone else. The difference is that the RIAA is defending a monopoly (of questionable legality), and monopolists often cannot see their business surviving the loss of their monopoly and will defend it to the death, even against all reason.
Finally, no boycott is in vain. A boycott of one person who stops going to a store or buying a product because it offends their principles is a victor -- that person has taken proactive control of their own life, against a torrent of propoganda and marketing telling them to do otherwise.
Your boycott will fail, unless what you want is to destroy the artists that you listen to - the artists who survive on a small but dedicated fan base. You are destroying the art that you love over a legal difference of opinion. We hope you're happy.
And you have the audacity to call us arrogant?
Resistence is never futile. It always costs the enemy something, and is always better than just rolling over and capitulating. There is a possibility we may lose the war, but it is certain that the RIAA is losing money as I type this.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
p.s. tape players are those cheap mini vcr's that do only audio ;>
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-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
There's a ton of great music on mp3.com. I've recently bought a bunch of CDs from there, and have since had a warm inner glow. The CDs I bought were all as good/better than stuff you can get in the shops, and, as the artist receives 50% of the cost of the CD, they're probably better off selling their stuff through mp3.com than going through the more traditional routes (well, that could be open for debate, I guess).
And, possibly just as importantly, mp3.com has been in RIAA's line of fire for a while now.
Might as well support something they're trying to shut down, right?
...j
(a satisfied customer of mp3.com and nothing more)
I doubt a bunch of Napster users who stop buying CDs is going to hurt RIAA. In fact, it could be a very good thing for the industry.
What's the first thing these people do when they buy a CD? Of course, the go home, RIP it and put it up on the net. Duh.
Thus, I suspect that a boycott will keep new music from showing up on the web through other (gnutella) channels.
If we really want to stick it to The Man, we need to go out and buy every popular CD in the local music shop (certainly not Amazon since they are very The_Man-like) and put it online. Once the popular stuff is online, we need to head for the more obscure tunes. And we need to mirror it across the world so no one can shut us down.
Only then will we have true freedom. Are you with me?
InitZero
(The best part of this post is that the sarcasm will be missed by so many and that the flames will come from both sides. I love hypocricy!)
Napster is a drop in the bucket compared with what will happen when electronic distribution makes them irrelevant. However, if they can kill electronic distribution now, they can continue their monopoly.
if there are any artists that are starving, send me an email (you should be able to figure it out). Send me an mp3 of one of your songs. If I like it, then I will pay you a dollar for it and ask for more. Otherwise, I will kindly thank you and delete it.
p.s. I don't listen to much top40, country, rap, or classical.
- passion
If the sales plummet only after this injunction (Especially if they were going up before) I think that'd be a pretty clear indicator that something pissed a lot of people off. Of course I don't think enough people will be pissed off enough to stop buying CDs. It might make for a minor jitter on the graph, but I don't think it'll amount to much more than that.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Here's how it works:
IT'S THAT EASY! And best of all IT'S FREE!
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
simply that it was a single company with a business model. It could be a target. That is it pure and simple.
As an analogy, consider the early popularity of the 'Net. All of the trafficing in free porn (of all forms), bomb-making instructions, etc., would have brought any SINGLE company down through lawsuits galore.
The fact that the Internet was decentralized and lawsuit-proof (comapred to Napster) allowed the proliferation of everything which legal harassment had supressed.
Napster has provided the model for peer-to-peer music-sharing. On the Web, everyone is an imitator of something.
Caveat: I have never, ever used Napster, or its imitators. I quit buying music years ago when it became obscene the price of CDs for the single good tune in a pile of duds. I'm just lucky to have good radio where I live.
Eric Anondson
It's simple. Someone needs to set up a web site called paytheartists.com, or something similar. Anyone who wants to can pay any artist an amount of their choosing per song they download. All completely voluntary.
I could imagine an "about" page that reads something like this (please point out any innacuracies, either in law or in philosophy):
What is paytheartists.com?
Paytheartists.com is a site dedicated to compensating artists for their work without supporting the leeches who at this point in time are vigorously fighting what they correctly perceive to be a very serious threat to their monopoly. The premise is simple: music is available to internet users through Napster et al, and this site gives you the ability to compensate the respective artists a paltry sum per song.
The desired effect is to show musicians that the Internet can be an ideal way to distribute music while still making money off it, and without resorting to closed protocols that attempt to enforce compliance.
But what about people who won't voluntarily pay?
This is inevitable, and perhaps not all bad. First of all, there are children and others with limited incomes who don't have the money to spend in the first place, so this isn't lost revenue. Secondly, music lovers would hopefully be enthusiastic to reward music they like, and might perhaps contribute more for a song they especially like.
Aren't the activities you advocate illegal?
Yes. However, we believe them to be moral.
First of all, the operation of this site will not increase piracy. Napster and other music distribution systems make obtaining copyrighted music simple already, and anyone who wants music can get it. The effect of this site, therefore, is only positive, because we seek to take all the music "sharing" that is so widespread, and let the artists who created the work in the first place in on a little bit of the fun.
Secondly, we have absolutely no moral qualms about leaving the record companies out of this. They are so rich and powerful today only because they've had a complete stranglehold on the industry for so long, that any musician who wanted to be heard widespread had no choice but to go to a record company. Worse, these artists are now stuck because they don't own the rights to their own songs. Look on any CD, and you won't see (C) The Artist, but rather (C) The Big Record Company. Artists couldn't legally take their own music online now even if they wanted to.
The record companies are further working against the artists by refusing to budge an inch in regard to online distribution of music. The RIAA maintains to this day that it's illegal even to rip a CD you own to your own computer. A site like this would be completely unneccesary if they would simply embrace the advent of digital music instead of fighting it.
We challenge the RIAA to stand by their comments about their litigation being all in the name of the artist. If this site succeeds and begins compensating artists in significant amounts (and with the huge cut the record companies take, it should take too much money per song to get up to what the artist would make off a normal CD), the RIAA should be estatic that everything is working out so well. If they condemn it as a haven for pirates, they'll be caught in their own lie.
--
OK Damnit, people listen for once.
Stats don't lie.
Except when you make them to lie.
Why did college area sales drop? Let's see, the stats that they site are roughly from the may to june time frame. What happens then? Hrmm.. Toughy.. Let's see. I personally take classes up til the first week of may, then dead week, then finals. What next? OH YEAH!! I GO FSCKING HOME!!!!
Gee, if college students pack up and leave, how are they going to buy cds?? NO WONDER THE SALES DROPPED!!! Did they ever site the drop in other areas?? Hrmm, maybe because it's been proven that it went up??
The stats are telling you what they want them to.
</extreme rant>
I appologize for that, but I'm kinda tired of RIAA, and this is another example of why they're not earning a whole lot of my money right now (I admit, I buy one or two, because I'm moral and understand that the artists deserve money for their work, and if I did buy it the CD has to be good.)
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
Time to fill up the hard disk on the old 386 and mail the machine to them I suppose...
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
People are clueless in general. The American public isone of the worst. In fact, it makes me ashamed for my countrymen.
From the misconceptions and misinformation that Napster is an "MP3 Swapping Web Site" to the pure ignorance of the belief that "Cop Killer" bullets can be shot through the blade of a bulldozer, people don't care about accuracy of information as long as it's entertaining.
Last semester, I had a professor who tried to convinve me that nobody had ever thought the world to be flat. His reasoning was that since people could see that the Earth's shadow was round, they couldn't have possibly thought that the earth was flat. My response, "A Quarter is both flat and round." A few people in the class actually laughed.
Back to my original point, you can't expect government officials to be any less clueless than society at large.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I don't mean artists should jump ship and break contracts. They should be pressuring the RIAA to change their practices. If they can point to a boycott and say "Is this what I have signed my rights to you for?", then that will be the catalyst for change. The longer the animosity between the RIAA and the CONSUMER goes on, the more damage will be done to the artists. I don't see how a consumer boycott is bad but ripping off fans is good. Both are means to an end, which do you want?
When it comes to censorship, there are no clear lines. Consider a gun control law that decides which guns are 'bad' and which guns are 'good'? Does that make any sense?
Tomorrow, if I decided to share information about how to build bombs on the internet, there's not a lot anyone can do about it. My ISP could drop me, but I can just post the information in a free NG or a host overseas.
We must tread lightly into areas dealing with such powerful, precedence-setting censorship laws. The next thing you know, they'll be banning books like I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and Huckleberry Finn in schools...oh wait they've already done that.
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
"You" should try reading the news more often - a major record company is set to purchase a huge chain of radio stations right now. Who needs payola?
How quickly we forget what times were like 20 or 30 years ago. The record industry didn't give people what they wanted, 20 or 30 years ago. They wanted more of the same. We gave them something different, and some disliked it, just like some dislike the music of today.
Pass this through a demoronizer and come back when you have something cohesive to say.
... is some sort of collective legal action against the RIAA on behalf of the independant artists who use Napster as a distribution method. I know that they are not even minutely close to being to majority of music on Napster, but shutting napster down affects a bit more than just preventing the supposed "piracy", and the courts should take that into consideration.
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
The RIAA will never even notice the boycott. Even if every user of Napster stopped buying records, this would be a trivial umber of people. And even if they were made aware of this, what difference would it make? They believe that the people who have just boycotted them were pirating all their music anyway.
And then there's Napster. A company just as bad as the RIAA. They rely on all this media coverage for free advertising. They know that people are going to use their service for piracy. They are also willing to put as much effort as possible into making sure that nobody else tries to compete with them.
So who boycotted Napster last time they threatened someone with legal action by (just as an example) using their logo? Anyone?
When it comes to things like RIAA I think we are looking at things in the wrong manner. As long as people are passive consumers the record industry, RIAA, ASCAP and all their minions will continue to exploit musicians and aficionados everywhere. My suggestion to everyone who dislikes the copyright laws is:
1) Buy a musical instrument. Penny whistles and harmonica are cheap, guitars a little more pricey.
Pianos are expensive. Find something in your price range that suits your personality.
2) Learn how to play it. Get rid of the TV and stop being a potato. Invest in some personal development. Lessons, lesson books and sheet music are very inexpensive forms of entertainment. You should be able to find a struggling (or not so struggling) musician somewhere who can give lessons on the side. You will then also have the satisfaction of knowing you are supporting your local music scene. The web also has some excellent resources for musicians.
3) Make your own music. Instead of being a passive consumer, be creative. Learn to pay all your favorite songs and possibly write a few of your own.
4) Give RIAA et. al. "the finger".
If you have a few thousand extra dollars to throw around, buy some gear that can record and digitize
music and share it on the web with other people. You can release under some sort of open license like:
" You may freely listen to perform, distribute and sample this music as long as proper credit is given to the author and this notice appears pertaining to the music you have performed, distributed or sampled."
Anyway, music is information. Information wants to be free. (I will let you finish the syllogism).
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I saw an article a day or two back (sorry, can't find it now) which reported that the music industry is starting to whinge about not being able to hire all the best geeks, since this whole affair has left a bad impression on geekdom at large. (The article quoted one techie laughing at the very idea of going to work in the music industry.)
This kind of reminds me of when Microsoft's PR problems started warming up about a year and a half ago (IIRC), when SB admitted that "All this talk about an Evil Empire has made it hard to hire the best". The media turned against them shortly thereafter. Coincidence? Will history repeat itself with the RIAA?
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
To those who would accuse me of being an "all talk, no action," let me add that I'd be perfectly willing to write the code for such a site (provided that the idea is on solid legal ground), but I have no graphic design skills nor the hardware and bandwidth neccesary for such an undertaking...
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Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
How many SlashDot users/readers are there? Realistically? A few hundred?
At least 174,382. Take a look at your user page.
And will the boycott do any good? I don't know. Will I do it? Sure. For the same reason I vote, even though my vote a tiny drop in the bucket, often filtered through the electoral college... it's what I can do, so I do it. It's better than doing nothing at all.
you tell me that i make no difference
at least i'm fuckin' trying
what the fuck have you done?
-Minor Threat
A band on Dischord Records, a label which is completely independent of the RIAA, and who offers most of their CDs for $8, postpaid.
Don't get me wrong, I like MP3s and I have downloaded quite a bit, but that isn't the issue. I don't profit, nor do I attempt to profit (in monetary terms, anyway) from my pirating of music.
Napster does profit (or attempts to) from pirating. Doesn't anyone here find that in the least bit odious? Napster has taken what used to be a minor annoyance to the recording industry and turned it into what will become a supreme-court decision. Why? For your money.
I hope RIAA reams the bastards.
Where are the grassroots efforts to boycott the MPAA?
I have been boycotting the MPAA for months now.
Slashdot has never been terribly consistent with respect to the DeCSS thing. When I tried to make them aware of Declan McCullagh's (a writer for Wired who hysterically screamed DVD Piracy when DeCSS and css-auth first came out) behavior and its affect on people like Derek (the original author of css-auth who had to quite the project under legal threats as a result of Declan's shoddy journalism) I was pointedly ignored.
Slashdot constantly inundates us with movie reviews and other "free marketing" of the very people who have declared Livid and the open source/free software community their enemy. Worse, they give one of the worst journalistic offendors, Declan McCullagh, very chummy introductions to any story of his they link to (most other authors are not mentioned by name when their articles are linked to by slashdot).
Frankly, I don't understand slashdot's behavior with respect to the DVD/MPAA/Declan/DeCSS thing either, but it sure does annoy me from time to time.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
In either case someone may grab one and run. Or grab one and pay for it/grab one because they already own the CD [but left it at home or whatever].
Either way, the one who actually does the wrongful stealing is the criminal. Not the store. Not me.
I am not more responsible for locking down my shares than the store is for not locking up all its CDs in theft-proof display cases.
I don't know all the costs, someone who works in the recording industry might better be able to name them, but it's unfair to say the record companies make CDs for 50 cents and sell them for $15.
OK. I'll bite. According to this report (I know it's ZDNet... ugh), the record labels only pay production and promotional costs for established acts. According to the same article, production costs for 100,000 copies of a CD are around $93,000 (the cost per copy goes down as the number of copies goes up). The record companies aren't losing a lot of money promoting lesser known bands, since those bands have to repay those costs to the record companies. And according to this report at Harvard Law School, artists don't actually start to make any money until 500,000 units have been sold.
So don't come crying to me about all the extra costs the record labels have to bear promoting lesser-known bands. It's just not true. 3000-4000% was probably a bit of an exaggeration, but 1800% is not (at the $8-10 sell price).
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"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
The purpose of the Boycott is to take the moral high ground while making a serious statement to RIAA. It is critical that the boycotters are unpaintable as frustrated whining pirates who lost their favorite toys.
Thus, don't use the word boycott in the same breath as you discuss other alternatives to Napster. It sounds as though you are saying, "hey, I wasn't willing to steal content before --I was buing CD's just as I was sharing them-- but I'll do it now."
While that is another tack -- the guerilla "you can't touch me" approach -- it is inconsistent with, IMHO, the point of a boycott -- to expose a bad for what it is, while making your own point.
By all means boycott if you can get a signficant market force together, but while doing so, DO NOT "share" the content you are boycotting. Don't listen to it at all -- protest and picket at live performances by artists who don't come out against RIAA's position, and listen to free music from artists who do come out.
It may not be as much fun at Dance parties, but hey -- if it is a matter of principle, let's stand by our princples.
But this is more than keeping cash while listening to someone else's music -- so don't prove the RIAA's point for them. Turn away from "big music" in favor of local talent, or talent that takes a "new view." Encourage local radio stations to do so as well.
This would make a difference, and it would also make a point.
Guerilla tactics might work --and they might not work: but you are simply inviting more warfare and litigation. In case you hadn't noticed, that's fighting RIAA in a forum in which they are powerfully equipped.
Far better to fight the fights elsewhere:
(1) hit them in their pockets by not buying (and by not using) their products; make sure the local distributors of these products hear, politely but loud and clear, how you feel about these.
(2) get active -- write congressmen and senators -- do it now, and keep doing it.
(3) stay alert and educated -- there are sound, cogent arguments in support of your position, but many resort instead to pabulum and the language of "underground piracy". That will kill your position in the long run -- you need not only to mobilize those who agree with you, but also to convince those who do not hold fixed and strong positions on these matters.
I, for one, am a strong IP advocate. If anyone would have held a fixed position on these issues, it would have been me -- but I listened and heard the sound, solid arguments in support of Napster, and was "turned." Other smart people can be turned as well -- but not if all they are hearing is pabulum from both sides.
The idea is to have the activists who care active, and the people who don't pissed off at the other side.
For my part, I'm not buying RIAA CD's, but neither will I be using the alternative music sharing servers so long as the injunction is in place. I will be writing and advocating the virtues of the Napster position before the Congress and at every public opportunity, and assailing the arrogance and weaknesses of RIAA's position, while acknowledging their right to protect IP at the same time.
In the meanwhile, trust the system to get this right in the end. They did in Sony and they did in Diamond -- in time, so too will they do so with Napster. At the same time, watch out for the Congress, who can change the law with a word -- make sure it costs any Congressman or Senator in this election period to take the "big media" position -- MAKE IT AN ISSUE.
This morning, Vice-Presidential candidate Cheney was asked about Napster. He begged off, saying he didn't know much about it. This can't be permitted to happen.
Make it a grass roots political issue -- try to get someone in Congress to pass a limitation to exclusive rights expressly permitting space-shifting as a form of fair use or otherwise.
You can make it happen, if you have the right and the will to do so. Do you?
Folks.. the issue is not that napster is a 'tool that can be used for piracy, among other things'. Certainly that is true.. it has several uses.
The issue is that Napster Inc. Is succeeding solely because they *knew* and *know* that people are using their service almost *exclusively* for pirating music.
It's not simply about technology; it's about a business that has been foudned *solely to help people pirate music*.
Do I think file sharing should be banned or even controlled? No way. I think you don't blame the tool; you blame the people.
But in this case napster is more than the tool; it is a company making money off of piracy.
.. I am personally baffeled by the RIAA's insistance that Napster causes people to not purchase as many CDs. Personally, I have downloaded quite a few songs from Napster (Bloodhound Gang, MI2 Soundtrack songs, eminem, etc) and in EACH AND EVERY case, I have gone out and bought the CD because I thought it was good.
The RIAA can't claim to not know that people do this. There have been a bunch of studies, such as this one. Many of my friends do the same thing -- they use napster to sample music, the same way the people use the radio to listen to new music. Based on what I hear, I may go out and buy the cd, but if I don't, I'll erase the mp3 and never listen to it again.
Does anybody else out there do stuff like this?
I've used Napster one time and found it too popular and not as easy to use as transfering MP3's on IRC channels such as dalnet. I use channel #mp3z and #mp3s. The downloads are fast and effective. And IRC is cross-platform so it works on almost any OS.
So why do we need Napster? IRC MP3 trading has been around for a long time and no one wants to shut it down
And this 'boycott' would be incredibly hard to suggest to other people, especially those who never use Napster or any other P2P system. Again, The World is Not Filled With Angry Young Men.
Bottom line: if you disagree with something like this, a boycott is not going to do a whit of good except maybe proving to RIAA demog peeps that "heavy internet users" no longer buy as many CDs. That's just grease for their fire.
Serious suggestions:
You make a good point, here, but I don't think your reasoning is entirely accurate...
"Where we make the money is in the Top 10 records"
The RIAA is an association with many many member record companies. The majority of these record companies do not have Top 10 acts, obviously.
These companies are RIAA members because they believe it helps them make money. But if small labels start feeling the results of a boycott directed at RIAA member labels, they may not think being an RIAA member makes sense any more. Dwindling membership would be a real problem to the RIAA.
Probably the RIAA could sustain itself with only the memberships of a few Major labels. But they'd be in a much worse position with a Lot Of Little Guys vs A Few Big Guys! (versus now: A Lot Of Little Guys vs A Lot of Big and Medium and Little Guys)
I would suggest Matador and Merge records, two of the bigger "indie" record labels. These guys offer a lot of excellent music (as far as I'm concerned; check my CD List but more relevantly they are very artist friendly. 50% of CD sales go to the artist on Matador, for instance.
You'll also find that CDs from these labels tend to be a few dollars cheaper than RIAA stuff.
An RIAA boycott will be pretty easy for me to pull off... count me in!
I know very little about the alternate Napsters. I have used GNapster on Linux, which got search results in half the time the Win32 client took, but I don't know whether it connected to Napster servers or alternate ones. My worry is this: what made Napster great was the sheer quantity of people using it simultaneously. If everyone goes off to whatever server they heard was best, that won't happen. And the non-technical users won't be bothered to enter a new server name. They'll just shrug and say "it was fun while it lasted." GNUtella? I have the bandwidth to get 400k/s downloads off Napster, but I've rarely gotten anything faster than 3k/s off GNUtella.
Is there a little false optimism here?
grep -ri 'should work'
And if people organize, that is a boycott... it is always voluntary
In either way; you are hurting them and still expect them to take your side? I call that being very naief.
If a group of people organize a boycott, the message being sent is that "You will not be getting our business because of X reason". If enough people believe in the cause for the impact to be felt, then change will happen. Otherwise we are a minority group with no CDs, where is the harm?
Microsoft doesn't provide the file sharing as a service that they manage and coordinate. They don't provide central index servers to what's available out there.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Apparently you missed the other big buzz in the record industry recently. Most labels are cutting back on their Classical and Jazz music albums, ceasing production, dumping contracts, and combining Classical and Jazz divisions. Some have even dumped their entire divisions. See the point?
...
You have actually made my point for me. Of the tens of thousands of different CDs being sold, only a few hundred were ever in the top ten. The rest continue being sold because they make money on them. If they do not, they cancel production and do exactly what you have described: close divisions and shit-can careers.
Clearly, by their own numbers, the RIAA makes money on a lot more than just the top ten best selling CDs of the moment.
Finally, no boycott is in vain. A boycott of one person who stops going to a store or buying a product because it offends their principles is a victor -- that person has taken proactive control of their own life, against a torrent of propoganda and marketing telling them to do otherwise.
Sigh... I remember when I was that idealistic.
It isn't idealism, it is mathematics. If you keep your money from flowing into the pockets of those you despise, and instead spend that money on something else (a competitors product, or a completely different thing) you have denied that person or entity real, hard income. If you spend it on a competitor, the damage is twice that. This is true whether your boycott costs them $5 or $5,000.
More importantly, if you take control of your own life and remove from it that which offends you -- in the case of many here, products of the RIAA (and the MPAA for that matter) you have won a victory, both for yourself, and against the offending party who now has a much reduced impact on your life. In effect you deny these people the one thing they crave more than money: power. This is no small or idle thing, and they know that even if you do not.
As an example, my boycott of the RIAA has cost them between one and two thousand dollars over the last nine months. My boycott of the MPAA has cost them four or five thousand dollars over the same time (I used to buy a lot of laserdisks and would have probably converted most of the collection to DVD).
If ten other people were to boycott the MPAA that would be enough to cost some MPAA flunky their $40,000 / year job. As it is, I, alone and acting by myself, quite possibly cost someone a portion of their year-end bonus or a raise.
Don't believe me? Spend some time with an accountant for a large firm. Even in multi-billion dollar companies bean counters make decisions like that based on very small changes in the bottom line (often each department and division is responsible for maintaining its profitability within very strict limits, which accentuates this affect dramatically).
One person makes a much bigger difference than you, or the mass media, would have us believe.
Just because you have allowed yourself to be lulled into a false sense of futility and bought into the apathetic, impotent brand of cynicism being old to the masses today, don't expect the rest of us to.
Now troll, I've fed you more than enough for one day
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
heheheh... Napster and boycotts aside, there's nothing I'd like to see more than the RIAA crumble.
Burn, Hollywood, Burn.
Of course, faxing the mp3's (bonus points for creativity in method) to them at (202) 775-7253 would probably be the preferred method. :-)
Sorry for replying to myself, but I'm having a bit of fun with the whole idea...
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
Wanted: A mediocre band with lots of experience in covering metallica songs. The plan is to rerelease their songs as opensource songware under the name gnutallica :) Serrie.
Now if you want to say that more power should be in the hands of the artists I will not diagree with you. But as far as I can see there is no moral right to have free music that someone else made. Just because it is technacly posible to trade music online does not make it right. Specificly I think Lars from Metalica was right when he said part of his problem was that no one asked him if he would like his music to be online.
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
What does the RIAA gain if Napster goes under? Nothing... at least not directly.
However, this lawsuit just might bully Napster (or some other company that tries to spring up from their ashes) into giving them a slice. That's what the RIAA really wants: a taste of the action.
Of course, if/when open file-sharing formats like Gnutella start popping up everywhere, it will probably prevent Napster (or some other company, if Napster goes under) from sustaining itself, and the RIAA will be SOL.
If you really want to strike a blow against the RIAA, don't bother with a boycott (the RIAA is an artist's guild, not a record company). Instead, do whatever you can to support and promote tools like Gnutella.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Seems to me that the RIAA is probably aware that there are other services out there. The point they are trying to make is that there will be punishment for those who (according to them) violate copyrights. Once they have weakened the arguments of Napster, it will make it that much easier to bring down others.
Their strategy is not to stop the exchanges immediately, but to bring fear of retribution into the equation.
I'm not saying I agree with it. But I'm not sure the genie can't be put back in the bottle yet. The reason they are not working with Napster is because they need that fear-lock on others before they move in and take over.
I remember about a boycott of the MPAA a few months earlier.
A few days after the start of the boycott, slashdot did a review of Mission:Impossible II
We need to respect those decisions guys.
However, this isn't the solution for everyone. Not everyone has the bandwidth, time, or storage space to get their music online (we all have the means: Gnutella, IRC, FTP, Usenet, etc.). However, there is a very, VERY simple solution if you want to purchase a CD and not have money go to the RIAA.
If you buy a music CD at a used CD store, the artist (and the RIAA) get absolutely nothing for your purchase. Someone already gave the RIAA money. The damage has been done. You however, for a lower price, can not only purchase the CD, but also not pay the RIAA. And no moreal qualms since it's legal.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
How many people have we got on here extolling the virtues of Gnutella? Far too many. Of which actually get usable service out of Gnutella? Far too few.
Unless you and all your immediate Gnutella neighbours are on cable-like bandwidths you'll be getting 1-3kbytes/sec at best. With Napster you'd be going pretty much full pelt. Where does that extra bandwidth go? You loose it proxying other people's requests and searches.
Gnutella and other decentralised filesharing systems are a great idea, but in practice trying to do large scale filesharing on limited bandwidth without a central index is a non-starter.
When The Man finally shuts down Napster, OpenNap and all the other Napigator servers, then that's it, game over until we all get megabandwidth into every home.
So all you spods out there, stop telling us how Gnutella is going to save the world, 'cos it isn't. Wise up.
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Offcourse there is still the small problem of artists who will suddenly see their income drop because people want to hear 'm but now stop buying their CD's alltogether. Is this how you treat the artists? C'mon try and use your brains; this won't help us one bit. On the contrary. How will the artists think of Napster and others when this whole "napster affair" causes them to loose their income? I doubt that artists who now feel positive or not-all-negative about Napster will continue to do the same.
Nah, use your brains and get 'm where it truly hurts. Don't make the artist become the scapegoat.
I agree that the RIAA should be avoided at all costs, and not just for the month of August - until they get a clue. That doesn't mean that Napster is a Good Thing, though. Napster is a neat idea, that has folks behind it who are just as greedy as the labels - they just haven't figured out how to turn their movement into dollars yet.
Sharing music is a reasonable thing, given that a lot of trading is of rarities and bootlegs that you can't buy in your local store. My own MP3 usage has been to this pattern:
I rip all my own stuff so I can play it off my PC's.
I download all kinds of TMBG rarities and boots. I've bought all their albums, too.
I download an occasional file that looks interesting, and if it's pretty good I consider buying the album.
Occasionally I exchange files with some of my meatspace friends.
I suspect a lot of Napster users are like me in that sense - it's a tool to complete collections and poke around interesting stuff, rather than just a way of getting all the free songs you can.
I see Napster as being the commercially oriented sacrificial lamb to the greater goal of opening up the distribution system. The cat's out of the bag, and soon the Gnutella's of the world will be dominant and unstoppable - and nobody will be able to stop it since there's no commercial shop behind the software.
If the RIAA had a clue, though, they'd adapt Gnutella to their own ends and provide for micropayments as part of it. The fact that they don't is just proving that the established order just doesn't Get It.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Posting at +2 because I want more people to see it... Yes it's OT, but I can afford the karma...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Folks,
I think people forget we -do- have laws on the books and international protocols on copyrights to follow when it comes to intellectual property.
Think about it: we in the USA have the Copyright Act of 1976 and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to prohibit the distribution of copyrighted/trademarked material without proper conpensation, and we are also signatories to the Berne Convention protocols on copyrights, which does the same thing more or less internationally.
The problem with Napster is that people can pass around copyrighted music files without conpensating the artists who may have spent many hours of hard work creating the music, which is a real problem especially for less-popular artists.
Besides, all of you folks are conveniently forgetting that advances in technology in the last five years (e.g., better audio compression techniques and anti-piracy protection coding on the music file) has made it technically feasible to sell individual songs in digital form. Already, several RIAA member music companies are developing means to sell individual songs in digital form over the Internet at very low cost, since there is no need to produce an actual CD and add in the cost of packaging. The possibility exists we could buy songs at a rate of ten to twelve US cents per minute.
For example, take Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." That song--just under 8 minutes long--could be purchased and downloaded at a cost of 80 to 96 US cents for this song, which is going to be far cheaper than buying a whole CD at US$13 to US$17 for the disc of even doing a CD single at US$3 to US$4 per disc.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
it is is a greedy VC funded company trying to make money of the work of others
/ever/ going to make money off this thing. Isn't that the point of Venturing? Were they just blinded by the fact that it used TCP/IP, and thought it would therefore be The Next Big Thing, like the wild IPOs only better?
Yeah, that's one thing I never understood about napster. It started off with those two guys working on it. So far so good. They dropped out of college to take advantage of the VC frenzy on anything internet related the past couple of years. Great for them.
Then these VC guys start funding them. What the hell were they thinking? They're suits, they should 1 understand that it's used for arguably illegal purposes and is liable to be a bad investment and 2 wonder how in the heck they're
--
Communication is only possible between equals
Ok, napster. A couple points. I feel like I've had this discussion a
million times in the past few days so I'm not going to go overboard today.
For those of you interested, Jenny Toomey from Tsunami has started/joined a
great lobbying group representing the interests of smaller artists (ie not
Metalllica) in conjunction with the Washington DC law firm Bracy Williams.
I'm going to be getting involved with the group also
1. The most frequent argument that I hear is "well, napster isn't always
bad because I got to hear a few of your songs and then I went out bought
your CD. So it was ok!" Here's the deal. I appreciate you buying the CD so
much! But if a band wants to give away some of their songs for free as a
promotional device, that should be their choice. You DONT have the right to
make that decision for them. And just because YOU go out and buy the CD
that doesn't mean everyone else does. Just because you're (somewhat)
ethical doesn't mean everyone is. But once something is up on Napster,
there's no way to screen these people. No matter how you defend it, taking
these songs IS STEALING. And yes, there are lesser and greater degrees of
stealing but it's still stealing. All of these excuses are simply
rationalizations. The point is, you as a consumer don't have the right to
make that choice for the "creator" of the music. It's not your decision to
make.
For the record, sarge has offered free mp3's at different points. We also
have sound clips up in different places. If people wanted to just hear
sarge before they bought a CD, there are plenty of other avenues for them.
I recognize these avenues take more time on your part and offer less than
Napster does but they're legal _and_ ethical. Sooner or later some
musician's going to sue the shit out of an individual napster user for
illegally copying their material and then making it illegally available for
distribution to millions of people. This person could potentially receive
thousands of counts of copyright infringement. You don't want to be the
test case!!!!!!!
2. The other (extremely silly and poorly thought out excuse I've heard) is
that napster is a way to "stick it" to corporations and the big music
labels. Well, I guess you can justify stealing by saying you're stealing
from the right people. But personally, I never thought it was ok to steal
from anyone, no matter who they were.
Anyway, the problem is that the band getting the most attention for
protesting Napster is Metallica. I believe Metallica has every right to
protest Napster (they're getting dicked on a monumental scale) but
obviously they are protesting it more from a political and artists' rights
standpoint. The thing is, bands like Metallica make most of their money
from Alternative Revenue Streams (ARS). ARS are basically money earned
through touring, the sale of merchandise, etc. Bands on major labels only
get a very small percentage (probably a few cents) from every CD that's
sold. Although they may sell millions of CD's, most of their money still
comes from other touring and merch.
On the other hand, indie bands (whom I assume you all support!) can make a
very large percentage of their money from sales and have very low ARS. Mud
and Parasol Records give us a wonderful deal. After the agreed up expenses
are covered, they split money with us 50/50. That means after the first
hundred or two hundred CD's sold for each 1000 pressed, we make $3.50 for
every CD that's wholesaled at $7. That's a fantastic deal and the only way
we _ever_ survived touring 6 months a year when we made less than $50 on
plenty of nights.
So anyway, you may think you only download major label songs. But in
reality you're lending your support to a product that facilitates the
stealing of music from _your_ friends. If touring indie bands can't make
money on CD sales they won't be able to afford to tour at all - and then no
more bands will be cruising through your town anytime soon.
Once again, I'm not taking a pro-corporate stance! Or a capitalistic "bands
should make more money" stance. But we do have to survive.
Ok, I'm tired and this is probably really incoherent so I'm going to shut
up.
Enough.
xo
e
I was never a particularly determined MP3 pirate, but after Elizabeth's e-mail, I'll never support a product like Napster again.
--
scot@austin.rr.com
--
101010, 222, 52,
I'll be doing my part by effectively making the primary focus of The Swindle a tool to learn the truth behind the activities of the RIAA and its member companies, and providing tools to help people share their thoughts with their representatives/advertisers of RIAA-controlled media/recoworms.
Stay tuned.
While I personally don't side with Napster, et al., I'll agree that RIAA is taking the wrong tack. The fact is that the "genie is out of the bottle", and suing Napster won't change that fact. But it's not surprising that an industry that consistently charges $15-20 for something that costs them $0.50 (a 3000-4000% markup) will sue anyone who tries to threaten it.
Let's face it. Napster is/was not the only game in town, but it was the most prominent, and had venture capital to boot. RIAA knew they stood a good chance of winning, and is desperately looking for a precedent in their favor. And going after Napster makes for good publicity with the media (who still report Napster as a "website that allows users to share MP3s").
The bottom line is that RIAA has been gouging customers for years and it's not at all surprising that Napster would come along. Napster, for it's part, has knowingly been aiding people to trade music that they didn't pay for. Neither side deserves to win.
I honestly believe that if people are given a convenient way to purchase the music online, a large number will. If RIAA realizes this, they stand a chance of surviving. If they don't, they won't be around 10 years from now.
---
---
"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
Good luck finding one that isn't. Here's the list. As pointed out earlier by someone else. Personally, not every label that is a member of the RIAA automatically is at agreement with everything the RIAA does, nor is every artist. A boycott of the entire RIAA doesn't make much sense. I am sure that a large number of labels and artists under the RIAA do not agree with any of it's actions at all.
What?
There is a big difference between the two groups and the formats they represent.
The MPAA is making a dumb move in the DeCSS case, but movies are available in several formats: tape, cable, theaters as well as DVD. DVD represents an increase in quality, but you can get any movie on tape.
What the RIAA plans to do is create a system where you will pay per use or per transfer. They want to control the use of music in a way which will abrogate your basic rights to use copyrighted materials.
There's also a major difference in who gets paid. When you see The Perfect Storm, George Clooney gets money from you directly. He gets a share of the gross. Other major stars do as well, as well as any profits from his image in other media.
Even the smaller stars get millions for their participation. The screenwriter and director make a profit as well. Movies are financed in several ways, by private investors as well as studios.
So the MPAA fight is about using formats, not screwing the artists. They get paid anyway.
Also when you see a movie like South Park, you support the fight against the MPAA's censorship. The best way to fight the MPAA is by supporting those who oppose it and the people who make the films the try to censor.
The RIAA represents the record companies and their interests. The artists are the lure they use to cover their own greed and duplicity. They get a ho like Lars Ulrich to whine about Napster when they steal his money and his right to publish songs.
You want to see a pimp in action, look at the major labels. They and their middlemen make $14-15 dollars from every $16, and that's if the artist is lucky. Roger McGuinn said he made more from Mp3.com than from a 40 year recording career worth of albums.
Ever wonder why Ice Cube and Ice T went into movies? Because they don't owe the record company a dime for that work. They do when they record songs. This is like sharecropping. Massa Sony lends you money to live while you pay him back with labor. He gets most of the money from your efforts.
What needs to happen is a way we can pay the artists for their work and not the record comapnies. When they say theft, it's their bottom line, not sweet little Lars, they're worried about.
The movie studios used to do the same thing until the 1950's, when TV gutted their market. Suddenly people ran their own careers and the studios provided financing and support.
Peer to Peer networking is going to be the record company's TV. Their long overdue wakeup call.
Matt.
Ok here goes. There is nothing wrong with peer to peer file sharing. The problem is people are attracted to free music like flies on Sh*t. They can't control themselves and they download and download. These people need to think. What are they doing? What are the concequences. This woulndn't be a big deal if only a few people are distributing music.
Music should be free when the bands that make it decide it should be free and not ever else. It doesn't matter if they might sell more by giving it away. If a band gets signed they decide that the RIAA is the way they can make the most money/ get the most exposure then they should be allowed to do that.
A college friend of mine is in a band called "tobin bridge". They can't give away there mp3s (and they're not bad.). Many Many bands give away there MP3s for exposure, it hasn't changed anything. The masses just don't want them. They want highly produced music and they want it for free.
I used to be a photographer at a "college" newpaper (70,000 copies daily. I was the photo editor as well. In my wildest dreams I would not take a photo that we didn't pay for or get legitimately and use it in the paper (public and free distribution).
Napster is about getting music for free that you shouldn't have.
People that want to get music fill find other ways to get music for free, (ftp,GNUtella etc.) maybe a "company",aka NAPSTER, shouldn't be trying to profit from this piracy. That is what this is about in my mind
MP3.com should be more popular, as they have many unsigned bands. But its not. They're are other sites that give away "live" performances from phish and DMB that allow taping of there shows. These bands have made the descion and allow this taping and free distribution of there music to increase there mindshare. But it was the Bands choice and that is the way it should be.
If you want to make a mp3 copy of your CD I think you should be allowed. You should rip it yourself (roll your own?). I think if you run linux you should be allowed to view DVDs. Peer to Peer networking should be legal. I like MP3 streaming radio "shoutcasts".
Napster disturbs me beacause of what it says about people and individual responsibility.
I'm sitting here with five moderating points, looking to use them, and I keep on wanting to moderate Mr. Malda's story into the shitter. He clearly doesn't understand why Napster's getting shut down: because it was designed and is almost exclusively used to steal other people's intellectual property.
Maybe intellectual property shouldn't exist, but that's another issue. Just keep in mind that the power of your beloved GPL rests firmly on the foundation of intellectual property rights.
As Larry Wall said, "Open source should be about giving away things voluntarily....When you force someone to give you something, it's no longer giving, it's stealing. Persons of leisurely moral growth often confuse giving with taking." I think Larry is referring to many of you Slashdot posters.
It's pathetic to hear the same "but stealing I.P. is not stealing because the owner still has a copy" song and dance that I used to hear on bulletin boards back in the '80s. I would have thought that we would have gotten beyond the self-serving, simple-minded assertions of BBS-ing 14 year olds by now.
Oops! I forgot that Slashdot is where today's 14 year olds make their self-serving, simple-minded assertions.
Take the Napster trial into account: What they are telling us is that it's illegal to provide a service that shares information. Napster, in my view, has not done anything wrong. The problem was that they were trying to apply age-old laws to a medium that changes every nano-second -- it just doesn't work out.
So boycott it is -- we won out over the PID on Intel chips...lets hit the RIAA where it hurts!
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
This account is a plant by the RIAA. I've been secretly infiltrating your belief system for the past few months. But, what you say here is the height of arrogance.
The RIAA does not care about your boycotts. The artists who you listen to (on average) are almost starving anyway. Your purchasing of their CD's supports their livelyhood. We don't make much money on them.
Where we make the money is in the Top 10 records - the stuff that most Slashdot readers (and other concerned citizens) don't listen to. We don't make much money off of your purchases. We make the money in the mass market. And by and large, the mass market doesn't care about your boycott.
What you face now is the immense wall of public opinion. They want their CD's. They don't care about some boycott. Others have tried and failed to get the public to listen to some viewpoint - no matter how well put together it is, because the public doesn't even listen to you. They listen to what we say because we provide them with the music that they want.
Your boycott will fail, unless what you want is to destroy the artists that you listen to - the artists who survive on a small but dedicated fan base. You are destroying the art that you love over a legal difference of opinion. We hope you're happy.
As much as I believe the right to 'share files' cannot be taken away, and that it is rediculous to try....
Napster, as software, I have no real issue with (I think it's kind of crappy.... but I have no real problem with it).
Napster, as a company, I *DO*.
See.. the thing is, Napster, as a company, is making money (or attempting to make money) off of their service, which they *know* is wildly popular because people like to pirate music. This is where the problem is.
They are, even though it's somewhat indirect, making money off helping people pirate music. Period. And that is wrong.
What if it was a 'free' service, sort of distributed? Gnutella-ish? NO problem. WHo's making the money? Nobody, a bunch of people are getting together and simply sharing information for non-commercial reasons. THis is GOOD.
I've decided that I won't be buying any RIAA CDs for awhile personally (I've already cancelled a couple of orders, and I buy a ton of CDs) but decide for yourself.
Frankly I don't plan to stop buying CDs since I've always been opposed to Napster since all it is is a greedy VC funded company trying to make money of the work of others. Now on the other hand, even though Slashdot is well aware of the DeCSS fiasco, we are constantly bombarded with various articles on buying DVDs.
I'm not one to fault others for their personal decisions but if you plan to make a stand, make the right one. The more I people I see complaining about Napster the more it seems like all they care about is free music and not the issues of digital rights or the power of corporations. That seems to be the only explanation for dissing the RIAA but supporting an industry that uses Gestapo tactics to terrorize tenagers. Where are the grassroots efforts to boycott the MPAA?
Personally, I'd rather see them play baseball to inspire ticket sales, but they haven't been able to do that in years.
I went to one of the Disco Nights because I was working at a Disco at the time, as a dance instructor. I got to dance out on the field, on TV. And I have to say, I don't look half-bad in an afro wig.
Now I'm a programmer. But I still don't look half-bad in an afro wig.
The act of sharing files with other is people is not what is wrong. The legal part comes in on what is being shared. Napster was allow its users to share copyrighted material. That material was not copyrighted by Napster but by other people, and they had not been grant the right to do that. Now, this bring up the question of file sharing through other means. The means is not the problem, its the content. If you have the right to share a file and give it to people, then there is no problem. If the file is copyrighted by someone, then its illegal. This is no different from software pricacy of games or applications or operating systems. Now this site deals in alot of open source software, but I'll bet that 90% of the member have a peice of software that they didn't pay for.
Heck, record your faourite songs off the radio. Write a letter to the RIAA that you are doing so until further notice etc etc... it sounds like a plan that needs a website and a LOT of supporters/petitioners...
Its the only way to hear the artists you like. There doesn't seem to be much alternative to the RIAA.. the bastards
---
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
They believe that the people who have just boycotted them were pirating all their music anyway.
In fact, the boycott itself may provide just the sort of evidence the RIAA wants to use in court. They were already citing a drop in CD sales in College areas, this will just increase that effect.
Maybe a solution is to only buy used CDs. This will demonstrate that there is a market for CD's but that we have no interest in giving RIAA any additional money. Of course, they may attribute the spike in used CD sales to people selling the CD's they have already ripped.
Help
Work for Change & GET PAID!
What I'm hearing is that CD's cost too much. And file sharing allows people to increase their spending power and allows them to get more music.
Freedom of the press and all that...
Well, newsflash... Yes people profit off of those CD's, if they didn't, they wouldn't be making them and then we'd all be forced to go to concerts if we want to enjoy the music.
Boycotting CD's in protest of the 'big companies' profiting off of you is rediculous. We think nothing of paying sports stars millions of dollars, and yet, since this is coming directly out of our pockets we complain about it...
And the worst part is, the muscicians, the real talent get a pitance of the money from each CD sold. In a society where you can hit a metoric rise on the charts and then be a has been a week later-- every little bit you can get helps.
You're preaching the rights of the masses to share the music, when what you're doing is wanting people to perform for you for free.
Yeah, sure stars make lots of money-- when they're stars... when people actually buy their music... but if we take away the money-- will they play for us while they're starving? While the people complain about thier rights to listen to the result of their LABOR and give them nothing in return?
Would you work for free!?
Its an interwoven relationship. You want my opinion... (well you're getting it)
Artists are appreciated because of their work. We pay them to do their work by buying their recordings and going to their concerts.
If we don't like them... we don't pay them.. they move on and do something else.
you want music to cost less?
USE the technology of file sharing... not to steal from the mouths of the people you claim to like... but to give them the money directly... They get more, you pay less... no middle men...
BUT... there are a lot of people who make a living in the middle...
Try to do something, but don't sit there and whine because you want these people to work for nothing and they complain about it.
No matter how you slice it-- If you aren't paying for the music you're stealing from them. Great way to show appreciation huh?
See, I'd like to still support the artists (by buying their CDs), but especially those artists that are on labels that aren't affiliated with the RIAA.
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
The RIAA already has a significant number of lawmakers in "panic-mode." They've freaked 'em out enough to believe that money is being lost hand-over fist, and even though the our sales don't appear to be suffering, our revenues could be MUCH HIGHER blah blah blah.
So, what happens next? A bunch of us decide we're not going to buy CDs. What does the RIAA do?
They jump up and scream, waving sheets of sales-data in the faces of those in the commerce-committee; "SEE! WE TOLD YOU! OUR SALES ARE DOWN! THAT'S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE! BAD NAPSTER! BAD GNUTELLA! BAD NAPIGATOR! BAD SCOUR.COM!!"
I don't think that any "Boycott the RIAA" movement will be considered "legitimate enough" to be taken seriously, but a thousand groups with insignificant impact individually makes a significant (or at least noticable) impact, and plays right into the RIAA's hands.
Sen. McCain: "So, even though the 'Boycotttheriaa.org' site is boycotting the cds of the companies you represent, you say that the boycott is not part of your sales dip?"
RIAA Stooge: "No. Well, not significant anyway. See, our research shows that Boycotttheriaa.org boycott only accounts for point-zero-zero-zero-two percent of our sales-dip."
Sen. McCain: Golly! You're right! Send out the jack-booted thugs!
--Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Each tape/minidisc/CDR-audio disc you buy has a built in tax which goes to RIAA members and lines the pockets of The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Who, Brittany Spears, etc. The small guys, like the late Muddy Waters as an example, never see a single red cent.
Fantastic.
Perfect.
This is exactly what I had in mind, and thanks for pointing me to it. My only comment is, why are you not batching the credit card transfers to help ease the overhead? Do you have plans to do this?
(Why the hell isn't this moderated through the ceiling? Here's our chance to TRULY make a statement!)
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actually it's http://www.riaa.net/....
.com and .org are... if they're not the riaa we're talking about, I feel reeeeally sorry for them right about now.
Dunno what
OK, economics 101 (a.k.a. modern warfare):
First, increase downloads of MP3. Why? Because it means that shutting down Napster didn't help, it made it worse. So, increase traffic to your favorite MP3 sites and only get your tunes there.
Secondly, upload private data about the judge. Hey, think about it. He assumes he's above the law and inviolate for his actions, that he can intrude on your private legal actions. So, show him all the data you can find on him and pub it to the web. And, while you're at it, let's track down some dirt on Lar$.
Thirdly, write some GPL. Ok, you should be doing that already. But, in this case, let's get something better than Napster, better than Gnutella, and pub it to the world. Then who gives a flying monkey about a US ruling - it's too darned late.
Fourth, email all your US Senators and US Representatives and State Governors. Complain about this. Judges like to pretend that they're immune to politics, but they're not. They go to the same parties, they golf with these people, they look aside when the politicos fracture the law. Well, take the fight to them.
Fifth, write a letter to the editor. Fax it in, with your name, address and phone number to your local newspapers. Or mail it snail mail. Build up a groundswell.
Sixth, make up some cool slogans and print up t-shirts. Sell them or give them to your crowd. See if the local Net cafe will take some. Make the RIAA uncool - they hate that. Have them kicked out of all the VC parties, all the geek shows, and ridiculed.
Then they'll pay attention.
Will in Seattle