If you do go this route, be sure to purchase albums from independent artists and labels.
If you DO plan on purchasing RIAA-stuff, at least buy used copies. You don't want to feed the proverbial bears if you don't have to.
In fact, these particular bears I'd love to see die of starvation. Oops - is that sort of comment going to get me in trouble with the animal cruelty people? I mean it figuratively, of course.
No real bears were harmed in the posting of this comment.
The part about filtering P2P is disturbing but there's are plenty of good legal alternatives to RIAA crap [archive.org]. I'd love to see every university mirror the Internet Archive, Creative Commons and promote work from people in their community. Let's take that part of this stupid law and make something cool that will continue to bleed the RIAA out of existence. I say this every time one of these "look what those RIAA bastards are up to now" articles appears.
This is yet another reason to boycott RIAA artists. Completely.
Shut off televisions or radios that have RIAA music playing. Whenever you stumble across them promoting a RIAA musician online, and you have an opportunity to 'rate' it, give it the lowest rating. Support independent artists. Purchase music from them. Call up/email corporate radio stations and request independent musicians, knowing full well they're not going to play them. Help to get www.riaaradar.com to a point where it's accurate enough to be useful in avoiding RIAA artists - send the editor plenty of feedback. (As of right now, it's pretty good, but I wouldn't trust it completely.)
The one thing I would not do is hack the RIAA website. Yes - we all laugh and cheer like schoolboys when somebody does it, but in the long run, it probably isn't going to have any positive results.
That's fine as long as people who barely use any bandwidth see their prices REDUCED. Someone using 50MB per month should certainly not pay more than $5/mo. I agree here. It's wrong if they use this as a cheap excuse to jack up prices through the roof for the 'unlimited' plan. However, I do see potential for a lower cost plan for those who just use their internet to read email.
HMOs have been doing this sort of thing for a long time. They have some health plans available that have more limited benefits, compensated by lower monthly premiums.
I know exactly what you mean. I don't have (or ever plan to have) kids, so why the hell should I have to pay taxes to pay for schools? A school system is a necessary service for a given community. I would support taxation of all in this case, just as I would support taxation to fund the police/fire, etc. Even if you don't have a fire, you want the service to be there in case you do.
However, what we're discussing here is NOT a service. NOT, NOT, NOT. It seems more like punitive tax that essentially punishes everybody for the illegal filesharing that some people do.
It would be like putting a sin tax on cigarettes that one pays anytime they make a purchase at any retailer that sells cigarettes, regardless of whether they actually buy cigarettes or not. If I go to the local convenience store and purchase bread and milk, why should I be charged another 15-20 cents for a 'cigarette tax'?
Maybe someday I will buy cigarettes. When I do, THEN charge me the tax.
Furthermore, as others have pointed out, what's to stop other media interests from wanting their piece of the proverbial pie? And what's to stop the music industry from not wanting even more later? This is probably just to get their foot in the door.
It's not reasonable at all. I don't fileshare music. There are plenty of other people out there who don't use their internet for filesharing. Why should we have to pay five bucks extra a month for our internet?
This is yet another way that the corporate record labels are trying to find some way to continue leeching money from us.
This is what I would suggest they do:
1) Start putting out good music.
2) Stop acting like assholes.
If they were to do these things, perhaps album sales may begin to rise again.
Of course, it may be too late for that now - they've angered a lot of people with their frivolous lawsuits. Perhaps they should just accept their fate. They're dinosaurs - the proverbial comet that will wipe them out will land soon.
It's not DRM exclusively causing music industry revenue to drop, nor is it the lack of DRM, nor is it piracy.
It's very simple - record labels act like assholes, suing everything in sight. People get tired of them doing this, and vow to stop purchasing stuff from them.
That's one reason.
Another variation - music consumers get tired of purchasing an album with only one good song, which happened to be the goddamn single that they played on the radio non-stop for six months.
There's another reason.
To sum up, it's a lack of quality releases from a bunch of corporate bastards that nobody has any sympathy for - that's a fantastic recipe for reduced sales.
If one of your neighbors is disappointed in your lawn care or your dog's poops, there are positive ways of stating the disagreement, and there are negative ways. Certainly, if they spraypainted their message in 2ft high letters on the exterior of your house, you'd be understandably less interested in the actual message than in cleaning the graffiti and contacting the constabulary. Likewise, defacing the website with a thoughtful "open letter" isn't likely to actually communicate anything. This IS the positive way.
Considering all the despicable things these bastards get away with, a website hack seems almost like letting them off easy to me.
In the olden days, they probably would have just been confronted by an angry, torch-bearing mob, who would burn down their buildings, and drag them away to an almost certain demise.
(Not that I advocate that, of course - it would break fire code, most likely.)
It's the only way to be sure. It wouldn't work. The RIAA is run by cockroaches, and it's been established that cockroaches can survive a nuclear blaat.
I agree. Cracking somebody's website is a real slimeball thing to do.
Although, considering the RIAA are the kings of slimeball, I thoroughly enjoy them getting a taste of their own medicine.
My only complaint is that it's already back up.
Couldn't they hit them with a Denial-Of-Service attack lasting several months?
(Yes, it's unethical, but is it any different from what the record labels do, dragging out court cases with little to no evidence, simply to run down the financial resources of the defendant? Payback is a real bitch.)
Perhaps we also need to make it clear exactly why nobody is purchasing RIAA music anymore - what about a marketing campaign saying 'it's not because of piracy - it's because we think you suck.'
This message can be reinforced by purchasing music from independent labels - if indie label sales are going significantly up while the RIAA label sales are freefalling, it makes the 'piracy' argument seem all the more far-fetched.
This is yet another reason to boycott the RIAA. I heard that music industry album sales took a real dive last year. Let's assist them going down even further for 2008.
As far as the MPAA goes, perhaps they also need to be reminded what happens when they bite the hand that feeds them. (Of course, if the writer's strike lasts long enough, it will leave them very economically vulnerable. What better time to boycott the bastards?)
I regret to inform you that I've trademarked the word 'trademark'. Please send me five dollars every time you use this term, or I'll send my cyber-lawyer after you.
It's kind of like how people react to when somebody hacked the RIAA website. We're aware the hacking wasn't legal, yet a lot of people were still quietly cheering the 'untouchable' RIAA website getting the makeover that it did. (If the RIAA didn't behave like such corporate jerks, perhaps people would be more sympathetic when this sort of thing happens.)
Think Dukes Of Hazzard - were those crazy Duke Boys breaking all sorts of traffic laws? You bet. Yet we still cheered them when they outran the slimeball county police.
I'm not a big fan of pirating copyrighted materials, but if large record labels can play dirty, it's only fair that somebody returns the favor to them. It's going to be a neverending technological battle - as they find ways of blocking/discouraging one method of filesharing, new variants will pop up.
Sadly, you're right - people kind of expect anything they find online to be free.
However, I think even if people were to not share music of musicians who didn't want their music to be shared, capitalism would begin to make these musicians obsolete anyway.
Those musicians who give away their albums online as a promotional tool, and then find other ways of cashing in [live shows, etc.] - they have a potential competitive advantage over those musicians who want consumers to purchase their music first before hearing the majority of it.
I think if you can get an entire album on somebody's iPod, that's a great deal of exposure for you (especially with those iPod users who like to use the 'shuffle' playlist.)
I do agree that a middle ground needs to be reached. Should an artist have some right to control how their music is distributed? Yes.
While I'd argue P2P potentially could be used by innovative artists to get all sorts of exposure for their music, the ball should be in their court whether they want to allow this or not. (A lot DO allow this - take all the artists who post full albums to Jamendo, for instance.)
As far as the corporate record labels go, they need to stop extorting money out of consumers by threatening to sue them over unfounded piracy allegations. I have sworn I will not give one red cent to them until this ends.
Furthermore, the record labels need to apologize. I'm not talking some wussy, spin-doctored apology like the one the Warner CEO gave. I mean a -real- apology.
While they're at it, they should completely dissolve the RIAA. The damage done to the RIAA's reputation is irreparable. They should create a new entity and start fresh [and not do any of the obnoxious things the RIAA did!]
Definitely go with AT&T.
Comcast has already been caught 'blocking' P2P downloads.
You wouldn't be able to pay me enough to ever use Comcast as my ISP now. They deserve to lose their entire customer base.
the best way to avoid counterfeit music is to listen to music made by independents who freely share their creations on the Internet often under Creative Commons, and reject any music made by people who are associated with big labels or the RIAA. Amen. There's a ton of good music out there with no strings attached.
Try www.jamendo.com and www.last.fm, for starters.
For Last FM, go here - it lists a bunch of artists of every genre that give their songs/albums away freely:
I think it is desperation for substantial change that is driving his campaign. It's the whole burn-it-down-and-start-over mentality. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Yeah - there can be something wrong with that.
Don't get me wrong - there is plenty of stuff wrong with this country. However, you have to be very careful to not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I think people should be asking questions about Ron Paul's platform. While he does have some good ideas, I think some of his ideas are godawful, and could do more harm than good.
I think Ron Paul is kind of like the monorail salesman from the Simpsons. He's able to make his ideas sound really, really good to his supporters, but some of them fail miserably if you closely inspect them.
Some of Ron Paul's followers are so enamoured with him, that this close inspection will never happen. Sometimes it seems more like a religion than a grassroots movement.
I don't think he -intends- for it to be this way. He's not trying to swindle anybody. I think he honestly believes what he proposes will work.
You hope that Nintendo Wii doesn't become the Gobots of the decade.
The Gobots line was a brilliant idea, but what ultimately sunk it was a lack of availability. Another toy came along that was able to keep up with the demand better [Transformers], and Gobots faded into oblivion.
"As punishment, all titles the the RIAA represent are now in the public domain. Next case."
Dood, share what you're smoking over there. Yeah, it's a great idea, but it's as likely as me becoming Miss America. For one thing, I'm in my 50's, and for another, I think they'd freak at the beard...
I agree. It is unlikely that this will happen...
Besides, a more fitting punishment would be to stuff everybody affiliated with the RIAA aboard a rocket ship, and send it hurtling into the Sun.
A true RIAA boycott would include most TV and Movies. Valid point. Luckily, the writer's strike is probably assisting with these two pieces of the puzzle. (Particularly TV. Depending on how long the strike lasts, the film industry could begin to be affected as well.)
It can get very tricky to determine exactly where to draw the 'boycott' line, considering how widespread some of these big companies are. (They have their greasy hands in practically everything.) No two people will draw this proverbial line in the same place, but at very, very least, boycott the music.
Will somebody shut the RIAA down already...they're becoming more criminal then they think the people that are suing are... (How's that for some nifty english) Easier said than done. How do you propose we do that?
I mean, we can't exactly go in and set fire to their facilities. (I checked the fire codes, and they tend to frown on that sort of activity.)
If you were unethically-inclined, you could in theory DNS-attack the RIAA website, but it would just be good for a quick laugh. It wouldn't really 'shut them down'. (Also, there's the whole 'legal ramifications' part..)
The only real way to shut the RIAA down is to either financially-deplete the members that comprise it, or convince those members that it would be a bad idea to continue to use the RIAA name to represent them. In the latter case, we'd just have some new set of random letters to be angry at. (It's kind of like a troll. If they get thrown off a website for their trolling antics, they may lay low for a while to let things cool down. Then, they'll just come up with a fresh login name to wreak havoc from.)
Slashdot Mirror
If you do go this route, be sure to purchase albums from independent artists and labels.
If you DO plan on purchasing RIAA-stuff, at least buy used copies. You don't want to feed the proverbial bears if you don't have to.
In fact, these particular bears I'd love to see die of starvation. Oops - is that sort of comment going to get me in trouble with the animal cruelty people? I mean it figuratively, of course.
No real bears were harmed in the posting of this comment.
Yeah, automate away - I personally find I can be a lot more annoying doing it manually, though. It's very hard to automate the annoying factor.
This is yet another reason to boycott RIAA artists. Completely.
Shut off televisions or radios that have RIAA music playing. Whenever you stumble across them promoting a RIAA musician online, and you have an opportunity to 'rate' it, give it the lowest rating. Support independent artists. Purchase music from them. Call up/email corporate radio stations and request independent musicians, knowing full well they're not going to play them. Help to get www.riaaradar.com to a point where it's accurate enough to be useful in avoiding RIAA artists - send the editor plenty of feedback. (As of right now, it's pretty good, but I wouldn't trust it completely.)
The one thing I would not do is hack the RIAA website. Yes - we all laugh and cheer like schoolboys when somebody does it, but in the long run, it probably isn't going to have any positive results.
HMOs have been doing this sort of thing for a long time. They have some health plans available that have more limited benefits, compensated by lower monthly premiums.
However, what we're discussing here is NOT a service. NOT, NOT, NOT. It seems more like punitive tax that essentially punishes everybody for the illegal filesharing that some people do.
It would be like putting a sin tax on cigarettes that one pays anytime they make a purchase at any retailer that sells cigarettes, regardless of whether they actually buy cigarettes or not. If I go to the local convenience store and purchase bread and milk, why should I be charged another 15-20 cents for a 'cigarette tax'?
Maybe someday I will buy cigarettes. When I do, THEN charge me the tax.
Furthermore, as others have pointed out, what's to stop other media interests from wanting their piece of the proverbial pie? And what's to stop the music industry from not wanting even more later? This is probably just to get their foot in the door.
It's not reasonable at all. I don't fileshare music. There are plenty of other people out there who don't use their internet for filesharing. Why should we have to pay five bucks extra a month for our internet?
This is yet another way that the corporate record labels are trying to find some way to continue leeching money from us.
This is what I would suggest they do:
1) Start putting out good music.
2) Stop acting like assholes.
If they were to do these things, perhaps album sales may begin to rise again.
Of course, it may be too late for that now - they've angered a lot of people with their frivolous lawsuits. Perhaps they should just accept their fate. They're dinosaurs - the proverbial comet that will wipe them out will land soon.
It's not DRM exclusively causing music industry revenue to drop, nor is it the lack of DRM, nor is it piracy.
It's very simple - record labels act like assholes, suing everything in sight. People get tired of them doing this, and vow to stop purchasing stuff from them.
That's one reason.
Another variation - music consumers get tired of purchasing an album with only one good song, which happened to be the goddamn single that they played on the radio non-stop for six months.
There's another reason.
To sum up, it's a lack of quality releases from a bunch of corporate bastards that nobody has any sympathy for - that's a fantastic recipe for reduced sales.
Considering all the despicable things these bastards get away with, a website hack seems almost like letting them off easy to me.
In the olden days, they probably would have just been confronted by an angry, torch-bearing mob, who would burn down their buildings, and drag them away to an almost certain demise.
(Not that I advocate that, of course - it would break fire code, most likely.)
It's the only way to be sure. It wouldn't work. The RIAA is run by cockroaches, and it's been established that cockroaches can survive a nuclear blaat.
What we NEED is a giant can of RAID.
I agree. Cracking somebody's website is a real slimeball thing to do.
Although, considering the RIAA are the kings of slimeball, I thoroughly enjoy them getting a taste of their own medicine.
My only complaint is that it's already back up.
Couldn't they hit them with a Denial-Of-Service attack lasting several months?
(Yes, it's unethical, but is it any different from what the record labels do, dragging out court cases with little to no evidence, simply to run down the financial resources of the defendant? Payback is a real bitch.)
Perhaps we also need to make it clear exactly why nobody is purchasing RIAA music anymore - what about a marketing campaign saying 'it's not because of piracy - it's because we think you suck.'
This message can be reinforced by purchasing music from independent labels - if indie label sales are going significantly up while the RIAA label sales are freefalling, it makes the 'piracy' argument seem all the more far-fetched.
This is yet another reason to boycott the RIAA. I heard that music industry album sales took a real dive last year. Let's assist them going down even further for 2008.
As far as the MPAA goes, perhaps they also need to be reminded what happens when they bite the hand that feeds them. (Of course, if the writer's strike lasts long enough, it will leave them very economically vulnerable. What better time to boycott the bastards?)
I regret to inform you that I've trademarked the word 'trademark'. Please send me five dollars every time you use this term, or I'll send my cyber-lawyer after you.
It's kind of like how people react to when somebody hacked the RIAA website. We're aware the hacking wasn't legal, yet a lot of people were still quietly cheering the 'untouchable' RIAA website getting the makeover that it did. (If the RIAA didn't behave like such corporate jerks, perhaps people would be more sympathetic when this sort of thing happens.)
Think Dukes Of Hazzard - were those crazy Duke Boys breaking all sorts of traffic laws? You bet. Yet we still cheered them when they outran the slimeball county police.
I'm not a big fan of pirating copyrighted materials, but if large record labels can play dirty, it's only fair that somebody returns the favor to them. It's going to be a neverending technological battle - as they find ways of blocking/discouraging one method of filesharing, new variants will pop up.
Sadly, you're right - people kind of expect anything they find online to be free.
However, I think even if people were to not share music of musicians who didn't want their music to be shared, capitalism would begin to make these musicians obsolete anyway.
Those musicians who give away their albums online as a promotional tool, and then find other ways of cashing in [live shows, etc.] - they have a potential competitive advantage over those musicians who want consumers to purchase their music first before hearing the majority of it.
I think if you can get an entire album on somebody's iPod, that's a great deal of exposure for you (especially with those iPod users who like to use the 'shuffle' playlist.)
--
Mike/AMUC
http://www.soundclick.com/AMUC
*Old fogey / Age: 32*
I do agree that a middle ground needs to be reached. Should an artist have some right to control how their music is distributed? Yes.
While I'd argue P2P potentially could be used by innovative artists to get all sorts of exposure for their music, the ball should be in their court whether they want to allow this or not. (A lot DO allow this - take all the artists who post full albums to Jamendo, for instance.)
As far as the corporate record labels go, they need to stop extorting money out of consumers by threatening to sue them over unfounded piracy allegations. I have sworn I will not give one red cent to them until this ends.
Furthermore, the record labels need to apologize. I'm not talking some wussy, spin-doctored apology like the one the Warner CEO gave. I mean a -real- apology.
While they're at it, they should completely dissolve the RIAA. The damage done to the RIAA's reputation is irreparable. They should create a new entity and start fresh [and not do any of the obnoxious things the RIAA did!]
---
Mike/AMUC
http://www.soundclick.com/AMUC
Definitely go with AT&T. Comcast has already been caught 'blocking' P2P downloads. You wouldn't be able to pay me enough to ever use Comcast as my ISP now. They deserve to lose their entire customer base.
is to listen to music made by independents who freely share their creations on the Internet often under Creative Commons, and reject any music made by people who are associated with big labels or the RIAA. Amen. There's a ton of good music out there with no strings attached.
Try www.jamendo.com and www.last.fm, for starters.
For Last FM, go here - it lists a bunch of artists of every genre that give their songs/albums away freely:
http://www.last.fm/group/Free+mp3+and+albums+list
Don't get me wrong - there is plenty of stuff wrong with this country. However, you have to be very careful to not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I think people should be asking questions about Ron Paul's platform. While he does have some good ideas, I think some of his ideas are godawful, and could do more harm than good.
I think Ron Paul is kind of like the monorail salesman from the Simpsons. He's able to make his ideas sound really, really good to his supporters, but some of them fail miserably if you closely inspect them.
Some of Ron Paul's followers are so enamoured with him, that this close inspection will never happen. Sometimes it seems more like a religion than a grassroots movement.
I don't think he -intends- for it to be this way. He's not trying to swindle anybody. I think he honestly believes what he proposes will work.
You hope that Nintendo Wii doesn't become the Gobots of the decade.
The Gobots line was a brilliant idea, but what ultimately sunk it was a lack of availability. Another toy came along that was able to keep up with the demand better [Transformers], and Gobots faded into oblivion.
Of all the Big Four, it's definitely the easiest to make an argument against purchasing Sony music.
You can tell music consumers about all the obnoxious legal tactics that the Big Four does, and they just don't 'get it'.
However, if you mention that a company puts out audio discs that can potentially F--- up your computer, I think that does sink in.
(Just don't go too deeply into rootkits. I find it's tricky to explain to people who aren't computer-savvy.)
Dood, share what you're smoking over there. Yeah, it's a great idea, but it's as likely as me becoming Miss America. For one thing, I'm in my 50's, and for another, I think they'd freak at the beard...
I agree. It is unlikely that this will happen...
Besides, a more fitting punishment would be to stuff everybody affiliated with the RIAA aboard a rocket ship, and send it hurtling into the Sun.
I'd gladly pay NASA to do this.
It can get very tricky to determine exactly where to draw the 'boycott' line, considering how widespread some of these big companies are. (They have their greasy hands in practically everything.) No two people will draw this proverbial line in the same place, but at very, very least, boycott the music.
I mean, we can't exactly go in and set fire to their facilities. (I checked the fire codes, and they tend to frown on that sort of activity.)
If you were unethically-inclined, you could in theory DNS-attack the RIAA website, but it would just be good for a quick laugh. It wouldn't really 'shut them down'. (Also, there's the whole 'legal ramifications' part..)
The only real way to shut the RIAA down is to either financially-deplete the members that comprise it, or convince those members that it would be a bad idea to continue to use the RIAA name to represent them. In the latter case, we'd just have some new set of random letters to be angry at. (It's kind of like a troll. If they get thrown off a website for their trolling antics, they may lay low for a while to let things cool down. Then, they'll just come up with a fresh login name to wreak havoc from.)