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Webcaster Alliance Threatens To Sue RIAA
detroitindustrial writes "The Washington Post reports that the Webcaster Alliance is threatening to sue the RIAA under the Sherman Antitrust Act. In their letter to the RIAA, the Webcaster Alliance alleges that the RIAA and the Voice of Webcasters negotiated in collusion and, 'were apparently intent on either eliminating their competitors and/or raising barriers to entry in the market for small commercial webcasting.' It goes on to say that the RIAA also wanted to eliminate smaller webcasters, who tend to play more independent material, in order to maintain their monopoly on music distribution."
I don't understand why people think that there's something wrong with two private entities getting together and deciding to act in concert. It's not like they're killing people--they're just trying to make money and hopefully stop people from stealing their stuff.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
Your first sentence will be clearer if it is broken into two, since it really needs two verbs:
It is immoral, unethical, but sadly not illegal. In fact, it is legal, and the law of the land.
See how we used bold for emphasis? Most people recommend italics, but bold also works well, and is more in keeping with the style of your original post.
Now, the run-on sentence. Lets take this in chunks again:
Our elected, paid officials have stood up for the rights of those that put them in office, and made a broad statement.
That's a good opener, shorter and easier to digest. I corrected payed vs paid. That's an easy mistake to make, pay is one of those special cases you just have to watch out for. Still, its a good one to know, because if you send your editor a note saying, "When do I get payed?", she's likely to write the response on a small pink slip. On to the next part.
That statement is that the average netizine is a hacker, a thief, a terrorist supporter, against the american way, and hate god.
Again, notice the bold for emphasis, it helps bring out your two large points. I think you got 'netzine' (a web location, like Wired) confused with 'netizen', so I fixed that as well.
In addition, they claim that most of us are sexual deviants in some way or the spam would not be so very bad.
Here, I've included the pronoun 'they' to remind our readers who we're talking about, and reworded 'soo bad' to 'so very bad', as stretching words doesn't usually add to understanding. Now for the final one:
They want us to believe that if we will just step aside and let the goverment and the corporations "fix" things for us everything will get better. Or at least people will stop complaining so much.
Again, I included the pronoun to really drive home that we're talking about someone else, and that someone else is our elected officials. You may note that corporations (plural) is generally used with 'government' to make it clear that you're not talking about any one corporation, but all of them in general.
Lastly, I broke out your conjunction into a new sentence starting with 'at least', which conveys the same meaning as AND/OR, but is much more readable. Also, since it is short, it makes a much stronger ending.
Here's the reworked comment in its entirety:
Finally, note my use of a paragraph break to separate the politicians' belief about the netizens from their wishes for the netizens' beliefs. This is a subtle difference, and breaking it into two paragraphs helps clue the reader into the notion that they're separate points, and makes it easier to re-read sections of your post.
Hopefully this has helped your understanding of grammar and some approaches to writing styles. Next time you're flaming from the hip, try putting these ideas to use! I think you'll be suprised how the combination of passionate words with clear understanding can really make your point clear. Even when its on the top of your head.
GrammarFairy dust for you:
'..,".'"..,".,",.'