How to Legally Infuriate the RIAA?

An anonymous reader shot us off a link to an article discussing how to use the RIAA's System to Broadcast Music Legally. Now, I'm no lawyer, but if the facts are correct in this article, we're talking about a price point that makes streaming radio extremely inexpensive. There's a lot of worthless spite in this article, but if you can look past that, you might see something worth thinking about.

Comments

You Give Hax0rs a Bad Name

[ticklemeozmo]

This is the main reason why we are losing this battle. People like Charlie Demerjian, so vehemently oppose the [RI|MP]AA, their words and ideas are poisoned to the point it does nothing but turn off the casual reader and make us look like a pack of bloody savages.

While he may have a good point (donation to the EFF), this reads like a 17 year old who just got punished and is now lashing out at his/her parents.

We need THOROUGH research into ideas and solutions and then we can practice them. And believe me, when the solution which is right and true (as well as easy and quick) DOES come out, it will be accepted and adopted by all (references: Napster, KaZaa, et. al.).

Re:Umm... no.

[kerrbear]

Well, than it's back to what I've been saying for ages. Quit buying RIAA music, tell your friends, and ask they tell their friends. When RIAA members see their sales go down by even 30%, I suspect that they would start putting pressure on RIAA to tone it down.

Nah, they'll just blame the 30% decrease on P2P file sharing and legislate a tax on computer equipment to make up the difference.

Re:Figure out a way to pay the RIAA?

[August_zero]

Problem with your argument chief:
Most artists will continue to make money the way they do now, without the RIAA overhead: they will tour and sell band merchandise

This would be nice if it was true. Some artists, the Eminems and the JLos of the world make a lot of money touring, but most artists do not. Check the last couple days worth of /. articles, there has been loads of proof posted on this and I am too lazy to reproduce it here.

Boycotting could be an effective means of driving a point home, except that most people do not care. If every person on /. stopped buying albums, the RIAA would see a loss of about, Im guessing, less than 10% overall sales. This they could quickly blame on piracy, makes some apperances on local news broadcasts to drum up anti-piracy support and jack the prices even further. Joe six-pack will then blame the tech crowd for stealing usic and forcing him to pay an extra $5 on that new Creed CD he wants.

Now a total boycott, that would hit them in the sack, but I don't have a clue how to get everybody to back it, and you need everybody, not just one demographic.

Where the blow needs to be struck, is by the artists themselves. We are not far from the day (if not there already) when an artist will be able to produce an album without a studio, and distribute it direct to fans via the web. No middle man. The RIAA's recent actions are especially going to encourage acts to start doing this. If the RIAA no longer controls the goods, then nobody is going to need to patronize them. They shirvel up like a slug caught out in the sun...