There's been a lot of media buzz lately about the effect file sharing has had on the recording industry. Reporters local and national seem to look only to the RIAA's web site when writing about the most recent store closing or falling sales figure.

The RIAA talking points are that file sharing is responsible for recent sales losses, and that a file shared is a sale lost. This logic has resulted in lawsuits ranging upwards of $300 million against individual users. With yearly CD sales in the $14 billion range, this somewhat outlandishly suggests that one user was responsible for a 2.1% drop in industry revenue! What's more, the RIAA's own suggestion that some 60% of files shared on peer-to-peer networks are illegal music seems to be somewhat at odds with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) claim that over 50% of file sharing is of copyrighted movies.

From the starting gate, it's clear that the RIAA plays fast and loose with the numbers. They obviously don't particularly care how close to the truth they come in justifying their attacks on file sharing -- and on file sharers. Those attacks culminated this weekend in a bizarre collaboration between the RIAA, Pepsi, and Apple, the Pepsi and iTunes commercial that aired during Super Bowl XXXVIII. In the spot, a series of fresh-faced, contrite teenagers targeted by the RIAA (not actors; despite Pepsi's involvement, the RIAA wanted the Real Thing) are labeled incriminated, busted, accused, and charged -- oddly enough, not convicted or guilty.

A particularly presentable girl then puts on her best "I'm getting back at the man" face and tells the audience that she and her pals are going to keep downloading music for free, and suggestively wiggles her Pepsi in evidence.

So we've got Apple, whose co-founder, Steve Jobs, incidentally, lets his kids neither drink Pepsi nor watch TV commercials, and Pepsi teaming up to not only strike fear into the hearts of evil-doers, but also convince kids that they're somehow fighting the good fight by pouring more money and energy into the organization that's threatening them. This, it would seem, is more than enough to justify a boycott of RIAA-backed products.

In the end, though, the RIAA's lawsuits and PR machinations are just the subtext of a much larger issue.

Buy Indy

Boycotting Big Music doesn't have to mean giving up music. There's lots of great independent stuff out there! Here are some ideas of music to check out. Let us know if you have other suggestions!

* I-Town Records
* Pork Recordings
* Warp Records
* Stephanie Pakrul
* Alan Rose
* Sam Shaber
* Bjorn Lynne
* Marie Zemantauski
* David Wiernicki
* Ryan Montbleau
* The Dent
* Wingnut
* Trout Fishing in America
* Twiin

The RIAA is the voice of the major players in the record industry. Its policies and legislative agenda reflect the goals of the companies that receive money whenever anyone buys RIAA-label CDs from the likes of Sam Goody, Fye, and Wal-Mart.

When you buy RIAA-label CDs, your money goes to support their lobbyists and their lawyers. Those legislative efforts are aimed at destroying independent music and eliminating consumer choice.

As an independent artist, I buy a lot of CD-Rs (blank CD media) to record my music. But of the cost of every CD-R I buy, 2% goes to the RIAA, a deal going back to blank cassette tape days designed to help cover the lost sales from illegal music copying. Have I ever received any of this money? No. But I bet you the Big Music labels have. I pay Blink 182, Madonna, Britney Spears, and U2 for the privilege of making a copy of my own music.

You should boycott CDs because RIAA is ripping off independent musicians.

You should boycott CDs because RIAA labels' contracts do more to destroy music than promote it: as Steve Albini, producer of Nirvana's "In Utero" describes it, a band that signs a standard industry contract and sells a quarter of a million albums will end up $14,000 in debt to the label, which will have profited $710,000.

You should boycott CDs because the RIAA shut down Internet radio for six months, until a groundswell of public outrage forced them to back down -- for now.

You should boycott CDs when the industry launches their pay-per-download music service (named, ironically, after the breakout file-sharing company Napster), and signs a deal with Penn State to force every student to buy music they don't want, and won't even be able to keep after they graduate. You should boycott CDs because Penn State's president is co-chair of the Committee on Higher Education and the Entertainment Industry, along with RIAA president Cary Sherman.

You should boycott CDs if you don't want to hand money to an organization that's tried to pass laws that would allow it to legally hack into your computer and destroy all MP3s you have -- legal or not, yours or not -- without any due process or potential recourse, and laws that would make it illegal to have a consumer electronics device that plays any kind of media without checking with the RIAA first to make sure it's OK -- essentially outlawing non-RIAA music.

That's why you should boycott not only RIAA-label CDs, but RIAA-backed music on Internet services like iTunes, Napster 2.0, and whatever soft-drink flavor of the moment e-music store has just opened up -- and you Mac aficionados don't even have to feel bad about costing Apple revenue. The RIAA takes so much of the cut from iTunes sales that Apple can barely pay the cost of uploading the file. Buy an iPod instead, before the US slams through legislation like that just passed in Canada slapping a $22 tax on all digital music players to "pay artists" -- no matter that no artists have ever seen a penny from such taxes (which are as high as 70 cents on CD-Rs, and which, if the Canadian Recording Industry Association had had its way, would have been $21 per gigabyte of hard drive space, jacking the minimum cost of a 200gb hard drive to more than four thousand dollars!) and that you might well have already paid for the music you put on your player.

It's hard to avoid every purchase whose proceeds might end up in the hands of RIAA lobbyists. If you own a Disney DVD, a Sony TV, visit CNN.com (owned by Time Warner), or buy a computer game from Papyrus, who are distributed through Sierra, who are owned by Vivendi, a RIAA label is getting your money. But the least we can do is hit the RIAA labels where the cut is the deepest and the statement the most obvious.

Until the music industry plays fair, it's time to stop supporting it.

When the next attack on fair use or free musical expression hits Congress, call your representatives and let them know that it's time for an alternative to the RIAA -- a system which can respect the right of artists to sell music on their terms and of consumers to listen to music on theirs.

Complete Article

cheeers to the article from magazine.14850.com

That's why we're all here. But, what if i like the current Top40 artists. Why did they sign up with a riaa label? What should i do? I'll tell you what i am doing.... i'm not getting any music. I just hear it over and over on the radio, and eventually, i get sick of it and move on to other artists.

I'm anxiously waiting for the price of Top40 music to become much cheaper than what it is.....like $3 for downloaded albums, and 30cents for a downloaded song.

PS... Dee Dee Music, Nettwerk Records, Mute U.S. to name other non-riaa labels

"
Boycotting Big Music doesn't have to mean giving up music. There's lots of great independent stuff out there! Here are some ideas of music to check out. Let us know if you have other suggestions!

* I-Town Records
* Pork Recordings
* Warp Records
* Stephanie Pakrul
* Alan Rose
* Sam Shaber
* Bjorn Lynne
* Marie Zemantauski
* David Wiernicki
* Ryan Montbleau
* The Dent
* Wingnut
* Trout Fishing in America
* Twiin
"

You want ideas, you got 'em bub.

ocremix.org (The best game music remix site period.)

vgmusic.com (Want a place for game OSTs you got it.)
midicastle.org

Go-Kart Records

Chophouse Records

just stop buying from all their corps not just the music. and any corp that supports them.

"Buy Indy

Boycotting Big Music doesn't have to mean giving up music. There's lots of great independent stuff out there! Here are some ideas of music to check out. Let us know if you have other suggestions!

* I-Town Records
* Pork Recordings
* Warp Records
* Stephanie Pakrul
* Alan Rose
* Sam Shaber
* Bjorn Lynne
* Marie Zemantauski
* David Wiernicki
* Ryan Montbleau
* The Dent
* Wingnut
* Trout Fishing in America
* Twiin "

(some of these added bands might have broken up in recent years, these are bands I heard because their music was featured in one of my childhood favorite TV show, the Adventures of Pete & Pete):

Polaris
The 6th's
Apples in Stereo
Chug
Drop Nineteens
Fat Tulips
Gothic Archies
Luscious Jackson
Magnetic Fields
Nice
Poi Dog Pondering
Dreaming Body
Racecar
Semi-Gloss
Syd Straw
Tara Key

And what of the artists? Here's some Indie Artist to check out...

Apples In Stereo
Arab Strap
Badly Drawn Boy
Beta Band
Built To Spill
Death Cab For Cutie
Dianogah
Don Caballero
Fugazi
Ghosts And Vodka
Gomez
Guided By Voices
Jets To Brazil
Mercury Program

Remember the sooner the public are aware of these artists the quicker we can put this RIAA Rap\Pop Filth to rest once and for all.

"Indie is as Indie does" Forrest Gump's Mother used to say.

The word is a rather strained one. Apparently if one is perceived as cool, though distributed by a major, they're indie.

And frankly, just to demonstrate how bankrupt the concept is, has anyone of Alternative Tentacles? Ask some of their artists how cool it is to be "indie"?

The reason I type this rant is that we need to not fund, as the author rightly points out, the RIAA. No question about it. But the idea that one can easily dissect, down to a list of a couple dozen artists, the "good" from the "bad" based on the label (or lack thereof), seems a bit superficial.

The best advice is to be an informed consumer. Don't throw away your money on junk whatever the source is. And, if you can at all avoid, don't help fund anyone or anything that pours money into organizations such as the RIAA. Kinda hard eh? It's a lot of work. It involves more than just buying some cool stuff put out by smaller, non-aligned, self-styled indies. It's about communicating with your elected representatives about your experiences as a consumer and how you feel about how their legislation affects you (and it does, that CDR tax is just one way).

It sucks but the truth is, there is no simple, easy way to defeat the metaphorical giant. It's tough, slogging work. But it's the right thing to do and if in, as the saying goes, viture is it's own reward, then so much the better for each of you.

That's my opinion and worth what it costs, no more.

Note the Riaa/itunes/pespi tv spot is still running on the networks even after the superbowl I saw it run last night!!!!!

Just for reference, Coke is actually slightly healthier then Pepsi is anyways... plus they haven't sided with the devil (yet)

I agree with all the post above me well read I'd like to add think of the next time you want a CD just think of how the RIAA benifits from their lowlife tactics and you'll be helping them.

P.S. spread the word to everybody of non-RIAA music.

"The word is a rather strained one. Apparently if one is perceived as cool, though distributed by a major, they're indie."

True dat. Just what is an "indie label" these days? I am familiar with Alternative Tentacles and Jello Biafra's problems.

Also interesting to note that some of the artists here were on major labels until they got dropped - Luscious Jackson, Syd Straw and Poi Dog Pondering off the top of my head.

What this campaign needs is not longwinded page long manifestos, which nobody has the time or patience to read but an iron boot approach to things. These mediapigs have a long history of being booted in the ass by society and fear it's wrath. It's informing the masses just who is behind the scenes and in the shadows who make the decisions to sue us but yet are to cowardly to come forward. Hiding and denying their power in the hopes these record head will remain anonymous. The key is not psych babble, but a grassroots approach to the matter. It's to get the word out about the many Indie artist that's the key. The 18 year old kid doesn't care about Freudian approach to music or politics, but only what's good. Many of use have different taste in artists and what's good. But what we all can agree is not good music is the garbage the Riaa and the rest of the media pigs are putting out. Remember it's not us who are the crooks, It's not us fighting and suing in the hopes of keeping Indie Bands from the public, It's not us who wish to see the Timberline's and Spears remain on top. But the sneaky Media and it's Filthy lackeys the Riaa.

Coke, Pepsi, both phosphoric acid in sugar water

The majors turnover rates are still high as ever. It seems no band or artist can stay on top for more than a few months before being replaced with imitators.

Looking at the current cool music, 50 Cent, I actually think I prefered last years star Eminem with his (c)rap. At least his music had more than five lines, even if every one of them was nothing but foul language

Morr Music
City Centre Offices
Moonshine
Sublminal
Global Underground
Kinetic

And speaking of Trout Fishing in America, does anyone remember Richard Brautigan?

"As an independent artist, I buy a lot of CD-Rs (blank CD media) to record my music. But of the cost of every CD-R I buy, 2% goes to the RIAA, a deal going back to blank cassette tape days designed to help cover the lost sales from illegal music copying. Have I ever received any of this money? No. But I bet you the Big Music labels have. I pay Blink 182, Madonna, Britney Spears, and U2 for the privilege of making a copy of my own music."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this only applies to CDs that are labeled for "music" use. I always buy "data" CDs for this reason.

Some more labels/artists that are non-RIAA:

Metropolis Records
-Juno Reactor
-VNV Nation
-Front Line Assembly
-Dismantled
-Apoptygma Berzerk
Warp Records
-Aphex Twin
-Boards of Canada

Thanks for the mention! Site is at www.stephthegeek.com/music
I'm actually switching hosts over the next couple of days so don't mind any hiccups.

I released my album under an open source licence to foster the kinds of amazing collaboration I've enjoyed over the years. I also sell the album in downloadable form. Of course it's nice to be compensated for your endeavours, but I'd rather someone listened to my stuff for free than didn't listen at all.

F*!k the RIAA. They are misinforming the public, and the public is eating it up like a gourmet dinner. They are misleading everyone away from the real reason why CD sales are down; the artists don't own their art, anymore, aren't being paid enough for it, and don't have the opportunity to say "NO" when another band wants to do a cover for an album. The artist has no control, anymore, and is less willing to put out the effort because of it.

Ever since the news of the first wave of RIAA lawsuits hit the 'net, I've quit buying music, period. Now, if we can just get about half of the US to not buy any CD's for about one month, maybe two, I think that Carey Sherman might just begin to get the idea.

But what are the odds that half of the purchasing power in the US will comply? None. Most of them don't care enough, like we do. A grassroots campaign is a waste of time. What else? Any other ideas? There are some nice ones here, but we need more, bigger, better.