The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a donor supported organization promoting fair-use, began a new campaign designed to counter the RIAA's jihad against consumers.

The campaign File Sharing: It's Music To Our Ears states that "[t]argeting technologists and users is not addressing the real problem." which is that "copyright law currently is broken. It is making criminals out of music lovers and technologists."

Read more at
http://www.clearstatic.org/node/view/152

EFF, thanks for continually fighting for us!

This is a good step. Suddenly everyone is paying a lot of attention to all of this. Educate the public. Make them all know the truth.

yeay! i went to their site and read about it. sounds like the RIAA is going to start having allot of opposition that is growing very rapidly.

I would love to see the RIAA go out of business. Only then, will I be a happy camper.

looks like somebody hit the self-destruction button at riaa

3 Days TILL FAIRFORSHARE!!!!!!!!!

I've been very encouraged by the action plan that Bill Evans has set up on this site. If we can get our message across in conjunction with the EFF, DMusic and the other sites who care about this issue I see a large grassroots organization starting. I think the best action to take so far is following the action plan on the main page of this site.

But I'd also like to stress that all the sites that are fighting this get on the same action plan, get linked together so that anyone who is visiting similar sites with the same message can get in on the same info and actions.

Another point I'd like to make is that we figure out exactly what it is we want to present, convincing legislature that file sharing is not stealing will be an uphill battle, but convincing them that the RIAA formulate a better business model than lawsuits may be a better tack. I don't have the answer there.

While I wholeheartedly agree that venting is a hugely important endeavour to our collective psyche, I don't see it producing results. I have talked to many people on the subject outside of this forum and most think that the RIAA is facing it's extinction and fighting tooth and nail for it's survival. I think that most people just don't believe this issue is very important to them and don't find it worth looking into, even after showing them the RIAA's numbers. So, in a way we are a vocal minority with very shaky footing in the eyes of most people.

Not to say we're wrong on this, but to move forward and be proactive about this, we need to crystalize our stance. The RIAA has a simple soundbite that works for them, "file sharing is stealing". It's one that legislators understand and the general populace will buy into. It's hard to argue that point without sounding like we're trying to justify stealing, without sounding defensive, and without sounding guilty. So having our own agenda that puts us on the offensive is important.

Of equal importance is how we deliver our message. Cooler heads will prevail, if we do write our representatives (which I strongly encourage) we need to be saying essentially the same thing, and in language that will not put the other side on the defensive.

We need to state our facts cooly and decicively. Angry rhetoric like "your days are numbered, RIAA", or "F@#K tha RIAA" are going to get our mail into the trash.

They need to know we are upset, they don't need a manifesto outlining what colorful things we'd like to do to Hilary Rosen with a pimento loaf.

I'm not trying to insult anyone's intelligence here, I'm sure this is all common sense. But if we're going to be taken seriously, we have to be serious, and we have to be active. It's a tough road ahead.

We could also contact Moveon.org and see if they want to be involved with this issue. Moveon has a huge grass roots org of millions and have become major players in putting the people back in "by the people, for the people", having their backing would be an incredible benefit.

Anyway, that's all for now. Good luck to you all, I hope we can pull together and help create a new model for internet distribution of music that will benefit everyone.


Thanks.