Slashdot Mirror
Would a Boycott of the MPAA/RIAA Help Matters?
ChrisGoodwin asks: "Why do geeks support MPAA and RIAA? Here on Slashdot, the talk is all about how evil the film and record companies are. But when the next Star Wars or Matrix or Lord of the Rings comes out, it's all about camping out to get tickets. According to RIAA's web site, member companies distribute 90% of the legitimate sound recordings in the United States; chances are, if you've ever bought music, you've given them money. (Take a look at their list of members.) Heck, most of the film companies own, are owned by, or share a corporate parent with a record company, and many of us get our internet access from part of the MPAA/RIAA conglomerate. So why is it? Why do we continue to buy their product? Why are we giving them money so that they can harass us? Why hasn't there been a call for a boycott of the record and film industries?" This is in the FAQ, but this is certainly a discussion worth having. With the pervasiveness of media in our society, for some it is not as easy as "boycott" or "no boycott", and it may be unfair to the artists we like for us to do so, and as Big Media diversifies, a boycott on movies and music may still not be enough. So do you feel a boycott of mass media will help matters, or would such be counter-productive in some way?
Sure it would help. If you could actually convince people outside of Slashdot to do it.
I'm sorry, but it's just not feasible.
No one wants to stop buying from their favorite artist, who is most likely distributed through the RIAA. And no one wants to miss a much-anticipated movie, even though the MPAA is involved. I don't want to say we have no willpower or convictions, but there are just things people will always want to see and hear, and these things are provided by an evil company. Asking someone to give up these things is maybe asking a bit too much. Sure there are those of us who don't want to see LOTR, but there's a good chunk who would stop at nothing to see it, despite its "evil" ties.
There have to be alternatives to a boycott. Because if you're basing your entire revolution on something of that magnitude, you're going to be sorely disappointed. The masses need their entertainment, and will get it from the easiest source.
I would like to boycott the MPAA, but if I want to see a good movie they're the only game in town. I can't really see a movie in any way (except when on TV) without supporting them. The best I can do is to send a dollar to the EFF for every dollar I spend on movies.
However, I do boycott the RIAA.
In order to be successful, any boycott would have to be: 1) Well-Planned. Without sufficient planning, it would be too little to matter. 2) Big enough to matter. Remember, these are large companies. Fluctuation (both up and down)is nothing new to them, and your boycott would probably go unnoticed unotherwise. 3) Thourough. It doesn't do much good to boycott the RIAA, then turn around and give the money to them some other way. 4) Publicised. They would have to _know_ they were truly losing money, and why. Otherwise, any real loss could be considered a sign they need to _increase_ their stranglehold on the market. Let them know who they are losing money to, why they are, and what they can do to stop it. I have yet to see any attempt which did not fail in at least one of these aspects.
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
A boycott would hurt more than it helps. All that the elimination of the slashdot market would do is make us a market not worth pursuing--and so we'd have a return to the days when all movies sucked, instead of having a good one every few (6-36) months.
A better idea would be for us to find RIAA/MPAA a business model adapted to the digial age--one that's more effective than the "Street Performer's Protocol" and more flexible than the current "pay per copy."
(Of course I have an idea. I'll write a journal about it, and y'all can see it there!)
What we need is someone to step up and provide what we DO want and then buy from them. So long as there is no alternative, then "boycotting" can never work. If you feel strongly about the issue, buy from and support those that are not funded or owned by the bad guys.
Anything you say will be held against you.
RIAA is disproportionately controlled by the Big 5 labels, despite the large membership including dozens of indie labels, few of those labels have anything to do with what RIAA says or does. Furthermore, many of those labels are members of RIAA more to gain legitimacy and access to basic distribution channels etc - not to fight your digital rights.
We'd be much better off boycotting the Big 5 of the music industry - Sony, Warner, EMI, BMG, Universal, and leaving indie labels and musicians that need every last bit of support alone.
The hard part is actually getting enough people to understand the issues and join the boycott. It's not simple, you can't tell people they're slaughtering cute little puppies for fur or something. You have to go into a huge explaination of the issues at the end of which, most people's response is "So what?".
I personally no longer purchase new CD's unless I'm buying them directly from an unsigned artist. I go to the used record store if I want something published by a label. It might take a little while for something specific to show up but I always have a list of 20-30 CD's that I want to buy at a given time anyhow. I would certainly participate in an official boycott and do my best to explain the position to non-geeks. However, my gut instinct is that the only way you can get a boycott against the record companies to work is to say they're drowning bags of kittens to make CD's or something.
Don't expect any support from the media either...
RIAA: Music sharing programs have caused our sales to go down by as much as 40%! Therefor we MUST be even MORE diligent in shutting down those evil pirating services! Commie bastards!
Put your energy and time and $$$ into lobbyists who will push your agenda in Washington.
otherwise, cut out your eyes and ears. 'cause, really, there's no way of stopping yourself from putting money into their hands. When you listen to the radio, you are supporting the RIAA via advertisers. Same with network television. a media boycott is just not feasible in a media saturated country (it's one of the US' largest exports)
If you want a boycott to be effective you have RIAA/MPAA has to be aware there IS a boycott. To quote Dr. Strangelove "What good is a Doomsday weapon if you don't tell anyone you have it?!?"
A bunch of people suddenly stopping use of a product(s) does not send a company a message. It must involve some sort of media frenzy so that the message is clear. If we just stop buying/supporting RIAA/MPAA without letting them know that there is a boycott, then they'll just see that as further justification that pirates are cutting into their profits.
"I drank what?" - Socrates
At least, that what's the RIAA is going to say.
Buy second hand stuff. Its cheaper, and it doesn't support the industry (RIAA/MPAA).
-------
Support Indy Music. Buy
It wouldn't be counter productive, but just like anything else, one has to determine what they are trying to achieve and choose the best way to get there.
/. is composed of many technical, knowledgeable people (well one or two and then everyone else ;), why don't we as the open source community do the unthinkable, and come up with a os technology to help the MPAA/RIAA attain their goal of making their content harder to illegally copy, but yet still allows fair use use. We regularly bash their attempts at doing this because they would rather err on the side of making the thing totally uncopyable, so why not pitch in and help to try to achieve a mutally agreeable (well as much as possible) solution.
As far as I can tell (and this applies to me personally) the biggest gripe that people have about MPAA/RIAA is that they want to squelch a persons right to fair use. I don't think anyone begrudges their attempts to keep actually pirating at bay, it's only when these attempts prevent the legitimate owners from doing things that the copyright laws appear to allow is when hackles get raised. Please feel free to add anything else (like artists rights, but I don't really have an opinion on this personally as it is more contract law imho).
OK, so we want to make sure our fair use rights are kept intact. How is the best way to go about doing this? I see two possible approaches. One approach that falls into the category of "why can't we all just get along", is this.
The second approach (and probably more realistic) is to say, "hey, no matter what technology we throw at it, people will copy it". Fine, this is a valid point. But lets be realists here and accept that the MP/RIAA will not take this for an answer. So again, I think having us as a community help them come up with a solution to their needs that is mutually beneficial. Suggest alternatives, create/push these alternatives. Put youself into their shoes, say "I need to protect my IP from those who would illegally gain/attain it" and say, how would I solve this issue?
I guess both my suggestions fall into the category of, lets solve the problems instead of fighting wars. Not that I have anything against fighting wars, it's just that, like in "War Games", there can't be a winner. Sure we could "boycott", but would that REALLY do any good? We're just to small a segment to make any real impact with our wallets, but we could potentially make more impact with our heads.
I haven't bought a CD in 15 years. Got little use for Hollywood films. Your entertainment dollar goes a long way at small clubs and art houses. Buy used CDs and used books. And refine your tastes.
illegitimii non ingravare
Boycotting is a complete waste of time in this case. We are not talking about boycotting fur which has a negative stigma attached to it, nor are we walking about sticking it to some small company that doesn't want to play by the rules. Media is just too pervasive in society and the next round of teenyboppers can keep the big media companies afloat with their rampant desire for the next N'Sync and Power Rangers.
Beyond that, while there are many Slashdotters who have no problem skipping Star Wars or LOTR until it comes out on video, ask them to not purchase the next Resident Evil when it comes out. Video games (something geeks love) and the movies are hopelessly intertwined. When you support the video game or the console (hello!?! PS2 is made by SONY!) you support the DRM bills we all hate.
If the geeks on Slashdot want to make a difference, they should
There are a lot of smart people reading Slashdot. I read a number of posts on any given topic that the author should just cut and paste into a letter, throw it in an envelope and send it to his or her legislator.
That is how you make a difference... not by boycotting.
-AA boycot of the riaa/mpaa would have to take one of 2 forms.
1. A true boycott
A true boycott would entail actaully going without a whole lot of entertainment. NOt listenign to any new albums or watching any new movies would probably be very unlikely for anyone, much less a (average) slashdot reader who enjoys that much more than football or clubs.
or
2 Piracy. That's the only way a boycott could work. Filesharing, vcd and dvd-r's(one of my friends has those and they work on just about every palyer you can find nowaday's) could effectively get the entire slashdot crowd entertainment without feeding the riaa/mpaa.
the only problem with option 2 is that is, well, illeagl. And many slashdotters value being somewhere other than jail.
I personally think no boycott will happen the **aa does something bad enough to make us either go without entertainment, or break the law in mass.
procrastination is a way of life aka i'll think up a sig later
How many posts have the theme "I've been boycotting RIAA for years -- the last new CD I bought was xx years ago."
News flash -- this means that RIAA doesn't care about you. By definition, you are not their customer. Hell, you're not even close to their target demographic. Why would they care if you love/hate/support/boycott/praise/condemn them?
You, personally, have absolutely zero impact on their bottom line.
Zip
Nada
--
There's lots of things to do besides see a movie. read a book. Write a story (even a bad one). Walk. Turn off your TV.
I don't like the terms that music is offered for sale under, so I don't buy it. I don't download it either, because I don't like stealing. I just let it pass into obscurity unnoticed.
An unsucessful boycott would simply demonstrate the impotence of the high-tech community with respect to any kind of political action, particularly since success in terms of affecting sales would require selling this outside the community, and would be worse than useless.
However, there will be a consumer boycott, and it will be effective. The next generation of DRM disabled audio gear with no analog or digital outputs, i.e. encrypted from source to speakers or CRT is on its way and was discussed yesterday here.
The public will scream its heads off when they find out what's in it, "You mean my VCR won't work, either?" and when they're told "DRM TV or NO TV", will be calling their Congresscritters telling them to tell the FCC to put off digital-only TV.
Hollywood won't lose any money over this, but the high-tech manufacturers who bought into Hollywood bullshit will lose billions, and a lot of jobs are going to get lost. Hopefully, including those of the CEOs who were stupid enough to roll over and play dead for their new masters.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The problem is that only a small percentage of the money I pay to see a movie is going toward funding the evil lawyers attacking fair use law. The vast majority is going toward stuff I *want* to support. I *want* to vote with my wallet by giving Peter Jackson money for Two Towers. I *want* to give money to the actors. I *want* to give money to the scriptwriters. I do *not* want to live in a world where there is no more entertainment industry. So what's to do? If you say a policy of zero tolerance is in order, such that as long as a company does any small thing I don't like I should never buy their products, then I'd never be buying anything at all, and would have to go off into the mountains to live as a hermit, growing my own food, sewing my own clothes, and so on.
So what's the *practical* answer? What can drive the message home to the entertainment industry without making it cease to exist? From the point of view of the MPAA members, reduced movie attendance because of a grievance over their legal policies looks indistinguishable from reduced movie attendance because people don't like their movies. It just looks like there is less of an audience.
This is especially a problem with the kinds of movies geeks like to see. If the industry sees that geek-friendly movies are not doing well, their reaction is NOT going to be to change their legal policies to appeal to the geeks. Their reaction is going to be, "Oh, I guess we should stop making movies like this - they don't seem to do very well for some reason." And then no more movies we like get made.
So, yes, I *am* going to be giving my money to see The Two Towers - multiple times. But I will be sure to balance that out with donations to the EFF.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Even if all the technogeeks in the US boycotted the MPAA I don't think there would be much impact. Geeks are a huge minority in the US, and I don't think non geeks really care.
/. are preaching to the choir about such initiatives.
Most of the time people on
-shane
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
I can understand why people would support their favorite artists despite who they are signed with...I know I do, and I wish there was another way to get their work and still pay them for it.
Aside from that:
The larger a company or organization is, the harder it is to affect them through a boycott. Even if all of slashdot boycotted every MPAA/RIAA company (which means giving up movies, music, cable TV, in some cases internet access), the result would amount to a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the population. And of course as the rest of the population either does not understand, chooses to ignore, or is simply naieve (sp?) about the issues at hand, it is impossible to generate enough boycotters to make a difference.
Most people don't know what DRM is or why it makes a difference if you can or can't play a CD in your computer, what region coding and encryption means concerning DVDs... Although we try as we can to educate the general public, most will turn a deaf ear when the info gets technical and simply forget how the whole ball of wax is about their rights as a consumer. Not to stray off topic, but the same thing goes for political issues and government, and alot of other important things in life...maybe people just don't seem to care or are afraid to go against what is considered popular (read: shoved down their throats) because they don't want to be the ones to rock the boat. Whatever the reasons, if more people don't speak their minds and educate themselves about what is happening right under their noses they will be in for a rude awakening one day.
When you watch network television, you are contributing by being an eyeball.
Only if you're a Neilson family.
No one wants to change their lifestyle. Its like giving up an addiction, Whether its smoking or goat-porn; The brain thinks up all kinds of reasons for going back to the old ways.
Its easy, its comfortable, its compatible with existing peers.
Advertisers learned long ago that its way more costly to change peoples behaviour, but reinforcing existing behaviour is very cost effect.
Boycotts seldom work now because it is so difficult to expect the modern masses to live up to their convictions.
I say boycotting RIAA/MPAA will *hurt* the cause. Furthermore, if you don't buy (license) MORE movies and music, you just might be responsible for new draconian laws designed to keep content dealers afloat.
(irony intended)
Sound absurd? Not really. All of the television and much of the print news has some affiliation with the RIAA/MPAA. On the news, slumping music sales are attributed to piracy by kids. If THAT is true, then declining automobile sales must be caused by little green men from mars, because the media is pretty much ignoring the economy right now.
News outlets like CNN run -- unedited -- the RIAA's claim of 400 burners siezed in that NY piracy raid. Never mind that it is NOT TRUE, the news doesn't care about accuracy and even if they are aware of an error, they have a vested interest in the RIAA/MPAA.
Anyways, they'll just spin it so the boycott gets no mention, and dropping sales is because of filesharing on that evil Gnutella network, and obviously the RIAA needs a license to hack your system looking for loot... blah blah
-S
"They're grups! bonk, bonk, on the head."
Boycotts blow over pretty quickly. Supporting their competitors is a better way of getting their attention and encouraging them to change. Maybe independent artists should make the fact that they are MPAA/RIAA-free more visible.
Half of the /. crowd is saying "Look, RIAA, Napster / Gnutella / etc. isn't hurting sales, I'm buyng more music than ever. See? I'm still buying CDs. I'm supporting my favorite artists."
The other half is saying "Look, RIAA, you're evil and I'm not going to buy any music from you because you're charging way more than you should. I'll listen to independent music / go to live shows / etc. to support my favorite artists."
Seems to me as long as y'all can't agree on a strategy, neither side is going to be particularly effective.
What's my alternative? Don't just support EPIC and EFF -- help build and support media which the RIAA and MPAA don't and can't control. Listen to and pledge to (and volunteer for!) your local "community" radio station. Watch C-SPAN and public access TV. Read indymedia.org. Go to concerts and buy CDs directly from local artists. Find an art theater. Use free software and play Nethack. There are plenty of alternatives out there if you're willing to look deeper than Hollywood-style surface polish.
It's the same approach many people are taking to deal with factory farms and the "big food" companies like Monsanto: buy from co-ops and farmers markets, and get on a first-name basis with the people who grow your food. It's not a problem for you anymore if you're playing a different game. Sure, it looks like a boycott from the industry's perspective, but the goal of a boycott is to change someone's behavior; the idea here is to switch to something better instead, with no intention of "going back" if the industry improves.
In fact, I don't even like the way this question has been framed. It's not a question of whether "boycotting" huge media conglomerates will have positive effects. The question is why we ever bothered to deal with their system's restrictions, costs, advertising, and insipid pap in the first place.
I didn't see any sign-up sheet for a boycott, but I certainly joined one - starting over a year ago. And so did hundreds of thousands or millions of others in the U.S. And its working. How do I know? The MPAA and the RIAA are kind enough to publish figures showing that revenue is down in both the movie and music industries.
Napster? File sharing? DVD copying? Nope. A lot of us just got sick and tired of bad movies, bad music, and B.S. from the conglomerates pushing them and started staying home.
I used to go to the movies once every couple of weeks. Not because the movies were guaranteed to be great, but because I genuinely like movies. Between the high prices, poor accommodations, and poorer movies, I quit going. Now I find myself renting classics from Blockbuster.
I used to buy a lot of CDs (and before them cassettes and vinyl). Similar complaint. Mostly crap and at high prices.
I'm not alone in this. There are millions like me. We didn't join a boycott, we just quit buying. And won't be likely to start again any time soon.
I work in the financial industry. There is no legal investment of which I am aware for which it is reasonable to expect a healthy 5 or 10 percent profit within a small number (less than 2) of years.
The pivotal word is "reasonable". Why should the MPAA/RIAA be able to reasonably expect to make a 5-10% return on their investment (and expect the government to help them enforce that profit), when I can't expect the government to force the person who manages the assets in my 401(k) to generate a "healthy" 5-10% return on my investments.
What gets me is that the MPAA/RIAA seem to act like it is their entitlement to earn a "healthy" profit. A profit should be a reward for a job well done.
Unfortunately the latest LOTR DVD has very important uncut scenes not shown in the theater. The fight scenes were twice as long.
A review on Amazon says it all:
In every aspect, the extended-edition DVD of Peter Jackson's epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring blows away the theatrical-version DVD. No one who cares at all about the film should ever need to watch the original version again. Well, maybe the impatient and the squeamish will still prefer the theatrical version, because the extended edition makes a long film 30 minutes longer and there's a bit more violence (though both versions are rated PG-13). But the changes--sometimes whole scenes, sometimes merely a few seconds--make for a richer film. There's more of the spirit of J.R.R. Tolkien, embodied in more songs and a longer opening focusing on Hobbiton. There's more character development, and more background into what is to come in the two subsequent films, such as Galadriel's gifts to the Fellowship and Aragorn's burden of lineage. And some additions make more sense to the plot, or are merely worth seeing, such as the wood elves leaving Middle-earth or the view of Caras Galadhon (but sorry, there's still no Tom Bombadil).
The reason the ??AA don't get my money is that my standards for what is 'good' are higher than 99% of the crap they generate. I'm just not interested. If they can find a way to make me interested, they'll get my money. This is the way most people think. The problem everyone seems to be having is that most people settle for what the ??AA is putting out, and it's not good enough for this crowd's tastes.
So what's your problem? Don't go to the movies. You won't be missed, and you won't miss it. Just don't whine about a useless and impractical boycott for ideology's sake. Heaven forbid, you might actually try doing something about it, like starting your own production house. But OMG, that'd require, like, getting off your ass and going outside. And being slightly intelligent and business-savvy. And dealing with liars, cheats, VCs, and all sorts of other unmentionables. Naw, much easier for you to sit down, bitch about how much life sucks on /., and munch Cheetos.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
About 5 years ago, there was a huge drive in the church community to boycott Disney, their movies, and all things associated with Mickey Mouse and friends. The reasons were inane: they had marketing offerings for all types of Sexual Orientations at their theme parks, and had pro-orientation awareness politics in their workplace culture. Thousands of parents threw away their kids copies of the Disney Classics, forbid their kids from watching those movies and shows, and thought they could actually make a difference.
/. readers are huge, but we are still a small piece of the pie. Get something big enough to get on MSN, CNN or Yahoo that is not bias and you've done something. Support the artists through their website and concerts, though even there, you're feeding the beast (who do you think the artists have to buy their CDs from?) and not completely free from them. The key to this game is exposure, and getting some people that have power. All the negative press out there won't help until someone who can do something reads it, and then acts on it.
There is a difference here, of sorts, in that the MPAA actually has reasons to deserve the boycott and bad press. They're about as close to evil as a company can get. But it would still do no good.
We're not talking about something easy to get around. I cannot blame a company's product for actions on the company. I don't care how bad the RIAA is, I will still support the artists I love and get their CDs. Used isn't an option on New CDs, and that is the surefire way to guarantee that the artist will not get any money from your purchase. At least they get something from a retail sale.
As a proud member of the masses, I enjoy purchasing things like CDs, DVDs, and Video Games. There are incentives to buying a DVD these days. All those bonus features, deleted scenes, etc. There is no other medium that moves around the RIAA/MPAA that offers these things. This problem is not new, and will not go away, it just simply is part of capitalism.
There is no true alternative for a lot of entertainment venues out there. Movies are movies, and even if you download them, you trade quality and extras for that "freedom". And there is a rule... if enough people do it, and they actually lose money, then things will vanish. How many bands out there have been affected by poor album sales, and then been dropped by a label. There is no way that I can tell if they were killed off by KaZaA or the other Napster clones, but I'm sure at some point it helped. The same could some day be true with movies.
The problem is in what the RIAA does now, and how much of a drain they are. Boycotting perfectly good movies and artists will not make the RIAA/MPAA go away. It will strangle out the good artists, and we will be covered with every clone and "corporate success" artist out there. Even if the artists are only getting $1 a CD, they are still getting that dollar, and boycotting them affects that too.
What I would look at doing is trying, like some others, to bring the truth about the RIAA/MPAA to light for all to see. Passing around those articles, writing letters to congressmen, or making those visible posts. The
The underlying undemocratic problem, of which RIAA and MPAA are just two examples, is the failure to protect the political rights of individuals by limiting the anti-individual political activities of corporations.
When corporations are allowed to use their income stream for political purposes, this creates a defacto tax on consumer dollars which is used to fund political activities without their consent. Usually, these political activities represent interests in direct opposition to the persons so taxed.
This situation is only a little less of a disenfranchisement than being rounded up by the authorities, taken to a polling place, and forced to vote for "the Boss". It's at least as effective, and alot more subtle. So subtle in fact, that most people have never even articulated the issue in their minds as to what is really going on.
Until and unless we achieve "One person, One Vote, One Hundred Dollars" as the bedrock standard of our democracy, all the energy spent to achieve the various and few single-issue victories for the true heart/mind consensus of the population will be about as useful as an umbrella in a hurricane. Good luck keeping dry!
We should look around and learn. The NRA made a national "ammo day" where everyone bought a box or two of ammo. Another tactic was to not buy on a set date.
..." why did sales go thu the roof on Wed???" "why are sales fine this week dead the next and fine again..." We can not expect a full boycott- many already don't buy that much, but a boycott followed by a controlled flood will get them to ask how they can get the big money. keep it broad short and WELL ADVERTISED....
Our best attack may be to boycott buying for 1 week and next week on a certain day buy from one channel only to really wake up the marketing department
Tazanator