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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?
There is a simple way you can take action against the MPAA and RIAA. Donate your old music CDs and movie videos to your public library.
If you later decide that you want to hear or watch something you donated, just get it out of the library.
If sales happened to go down because of this, they would probably blame lack of sales on file sharing and piracy. They've done it before.
For this reason and because we geeks make up a small portion of all who give money to them, it's probably best for us to increase awareness of all the bad that the MPAA/RIAA are doing and support groups like the EFF.
The church where I go pays a license fee (based on the size of the church) to sing a bunch of the newer songs. I protested to the guy who pays the bills, saying we should only sing public domain stuff. The fee (which is not all that much, really) goes to some company which is part of the RIAA. I figured all this out and am still trying to determine how upset I should be. I love the image of a Christian musician offering his works to the church "for the glory of God", and looming behind him is the dark visage of the State: "don't even think about singing these without paying!"
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Hey, guys:
;)
Boycotting the MPAA and RIAA won't do any good, for one major reason: the number of people who actually care about this issue is so small compared to the population at large that the RIAA and MPAA is unlikely to even notice that a boycott is occurring.
What WILL happen is that the people involved in the boycott will punish themselves, suffering weeks without internet access, movies, music, and so on, all just to find out that their suffering has all been in vain.
Then, there are the logistical problems. How, for instance, will boycotters coordinate their activities if they cannot read Slashdot because their ISP is their cable company? And, if they cannot coordinate their efforts, isn't it possible that at least some of them will never realize the boycott is over, ending up forty years from now like latter-day Rip Van Winkles, trying to plug decades-old Linux boxen into some hyper-modern network? Hair down to their ankles, teeth rotten away, eyes frozen into a thousand-yard stare?
Let alone the withdrawl symptoms they'll experience when they give up their favorite games. Public-service wards will fill with people whose thumbs continually twitch, twitch, twitch in a memorized UT sequence... Periodically they'll yell "BUY A BIGGER GUN!" The orderlies will be nervous wrecks. Electroshock will certainly follow.
No, friends, I think I'll pass. I think it will be a lot more fun if one of us creates a half-life mod oriented around the MPAA and/or RIAA headquarters and posts it to a friendly mirror. Surely at least ONE employee of one of these agencies reads slashdot? And, surely SOMEONE out there likes doing game mods, and has a few hours to spare?
I'd just like to see the boss battle against Valenti. THAT would be SOMETHING. Do a sort of "ROBOVALENTI" theme, maybe. Use really bad, color mug shots from the media. Animate it like on SouthPark. Maybe do something like the "bedroom" scene between Saddam and the devil? Um... Or not.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
"It ain't that phricken difficult, folks.
Movies: Only attend matinees, if you MUST see it in a theatre.
DVD's: Only buy used. Period. It's not that difficult to find a pawn shop, or ebay, or whatever.
Music: Only buy used. Again, it's not that hard to find your favorite artists. Wanna support the artist? Go see their show, buy their ts-shirt or cd AT THE SHOW.
I utterly REFUSE to give those fsckers another dime that I don't absolutely have to."
This would not work. Period. All they'll see is that there's a decline in sales. Where do you think they'll place the blame? Hint: Their first assumption won't be that they're being boycotted.
At best, it'd backfire. Ironically, it'd probably be useful to give them more money. As silly as it sounds, the RIAA sounded incredibly idiotic when they claimed that Napster cut into their sales while they were at the peak of their sales.
I bet you a contributing factor to the dismissal of the SSSCA was that the MPAA couldn't make legitimate claims of losses. If people really did shift over to P2P like the *AA fears, then a different story might have emerged from that whole ordeal.
It's good to see that people are actually talking about this again. As the founder of boycott-riaa.com on July 13, 2002, I've been at this for quite sometime. When the original threat of Napster being shutdown loomed, people got incensed and it made difference. That lasted right up until other file sharing programs became available.
We still get a large number of visitors who drop by the site on a daily basis, to check to see what the news is. Some of the most recent articles include: "RIAA's Statistics Don't Add Up to Piracy" (article) and The RIAA's response to "How many CD Burners were there actually in the Queens Bust?"(article) seems there were a heck of a lot less than the equivalent the stated. Straight from the horse's mouth
My personal boycotting lead me to start buying independent music and I've actually been buying more music than I ever did from RIAA artists and labels. Partially because its often cheaper, around $8.00 -$10.00, and partially because the music is often much better, than what the majors are putting out.
In 2001 RIAA sales were down 5% and they RIAA laid off 16 people in Jan 2002. This year the sales are down 7% to 9% (depending on whose numbers you read) hopefully we can look forward to more layoffs. Less staff less impact. The RIAA membership dues are a portion of the labels sales, lower sales=smaller budget=less impact.
Those that say there is no affect on the RIAA and MPAA are misguided. In the past 2 1/2 years I've bought over 150 CDs from independent musicians, money that went to them, not to RIAA labels. But the largest affect that has taken place is that people are begining to discover independent music, are buying it, ignoring the majors offerings, and as a result the RIAA is becoming the Maginot Line of the music industry. We make them irrelvant by bypassing them. What else is happening is that artists are beginning to wake up speaking out as well, Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian, Elton John, The RAC headed by Don Henley, just to name a few. The RIAA's positions coupled with a loss of sales, has come to the attention of Congress, The DOJ to name but a few and many former backers in congress are finding that the RIAA isn't always right or even telling them the truth. Unethical business practices are coming to light that have been the industry standard for years, that are forcing changes in the way the industry works, in their actions toward artists and consumers.
This is not an if/then type of thing, there are a lot of varibles involved, that each action has an effect somewhere, maybe very subtle, but the overall result is that while the RIAA is winning the battles, they are losing the war. And their desperation is showing.