Yes. You read it right. According to Associated Press' Ted Bridis, at least 871 federal subpoenas have been issued by the RIAA. The AP obtained copies of the subpoenas, and some were issued for people having as few as 5 songs on their computer.

Says Bridis, "Many of the subpoenas reviewed by the AP identified songs from the same few artists, including Avril Lavigne, Snoop Dogg and Michael Jackson. It was impossible to determine whether industry lawyers were searching the Internet specifically for songs by these artists or whether they were commonly popular among the roughly 60 million users of file-sharing services."

Bridis continues, "The RIAA's subpoenas are so prolific that the U.S. District Court in Washington, already suffering staff shortages, has been forced to reassign employees from elsewhere in the clerk's office to help process paperwork, said Angela Caesar-Mobley, the clerk's operations manager."

Verizon apparently has become a primary RIAA target and says it's received at least 150 in the past two weeks.

But AOL/Time Warner, on the other hand, a member of the RIAA and the nation's largest internet provider, hasn't received any!

Universities are reporting receiving subpeoneas as well, as we already know.

The war has begun, and you're the target. So stop sharing - unless you want to be an RIAA posterchild.

But more important - DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM RIAA MEMBERS.

PERIOD!

Show congress there's a relationship between downloading and buying ... I can't download, I don't buy.

You think 11% is something Mr Oppenheim and Mr Sherman? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Users - check out independent music sites such as DMusic.com or any of the many others out there.

You don't need RIAA music.

But they need you.

Read the Entire article by Ted Bridis

READ THE ARTICLE ABOVE, NO AOL USERS WERE INVOLVED!!! THIS MAKES ME WANT TO CALL THE RIAA AND SAY WHAT THEY HECK IS WRONG, YOUR TOO AFRAID TO SUE YOURSELF!

THIS IS A CALL TO ALL, EVERYWHERE, PROTEST ON AUGUST 1st or 2nd!!! MAKE A LOT OF CONTACTS!! I WILL BE OUT PROTESTING in the LOS ANGELES are and educating people. I am more committed than ever to this movement, GET INVOLVED.

Whereas AOL/Time Warner, a member of the RIAA, and the nations largest internet provider has received none!

STAY AWAY FROM ANYTHING AOL or its PARENT COMPANIES!!!!!!!!!

All I have to say about this is: If anything cries out for tort reform -- THIS IS IT!

CALL FOR TORT REFORM TO CURB THE RIAA'S ABUSE OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM TO DISENFRANCHISE, USURP, SUBJUGATE AND ENSLAVE CONSUMERS!

Anyone, HAS ANY COMPANY EVER SUED THERE CUSTOMERS LIKE THIS IN THE PAST? Please let me know.

Isn't tying up the courts like this against the law?

kneo24,
Not sure.

750,000 $'s to 1,500,000,000 $'s !!!

ack, those dollar amounts are per 1000 songs

There lawsuits are going to surpass the TRILLION DOLLAR DEBTS THE US IS IN!

http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_1388359,00.html

So how long before the RIAA spin doc's label P2P file sharing as Terrorism?

..or have they done that already?

They already have, and also said it results in children having access to porn, causes security risks, and causes hair to grow in the palms of your hands...

I don't see what the excitement is all about. It is only 871 people out of 60 million p2p users. And probably just from Kazaa and similar first-generation p2p.
Subpoenas are cheap, lawsuits are not. The frequency of RIAA lawsuits will probably not go up anytime soon, since everything takes time to process. We are still very unlikely to be busted.

In any case, their horseshit is too little too late; new proxy-based services (or p2p2p as I like to call them) are catching on rapidly.
Just dont run your mouth in a self-incriminating way.

Keep on downloading, but dont get caught serving filez.
Remember:

____DOWNLOADING IS STILL LEGAL_____.

How much is a house in Canada?

I think some of you missed the irony in this. Yeah, the vultures have filed almost 900 cases and already the District Court is tied up. Remember, they need to do 500 successful cases each and every single day to break even on this.

They have just accelerated their death spiral. First of all, their pockets are shrinking with every percentage of sales decline. Secondly, they are now pissing off people at a rapidly increasing rate.

They have NO POWER against anyone who erases all the RIAA music from their hard drives.

The solution is simple -- not only stop buying RIAA music, but refuse to even listen to it.

Indies rock. Fuck the RIAA and ASCAP and BMI and Clear Channel. All of them. Turn them off and throw them away.

Fuck you, RIAA. You're gonna pay soon. People are gonna quit buying once you start this bullshit. 871 people IS a lot, and after you sue them, I doubt anyone in their families will want to buy from you because you decided you just HAD to clean out Uncle Bob.

Right ON George!

This RIAA stuff is so retarded. Like ANYONE needs these asswipes fining you and throwing you in jail during such hard times. What's going to happen to every kid's dad when he gets thrown in jail for this? What going to happen to his family then, huh? I guess them stopping losing 7 cents because someone downloads a song is more important than making a family go hungry and lose their house.

How many jailcells does it take to hold 60 million filesharers? How many people does it take to vote a president into office? 60 Million...There are more people using file sharing programs than voted for either candidate in the last presidental election. We have the power people...

Consider this. What happens when the RIAA winds up arresting a kid of someone from the Teamsters or the Mob? I guaren-fucking-tee-you this shit will be over and there will be ALOT of missing RIAA members. The RIAA are eventually going to fuck with the wrong person. Don't worry.

I believe I pointed out earlier that AOL was part of these punks.

After long consideration of the facts, and tactics which do work, and which do not work - one thing becomes abundantly clear.

We NEED a Political Action Committee(PAC) to buy our own politicians to combat the scoundrels on the RIAA payroll.

I cannot say I care for the idea, but unfortunately it is the nature of the game, even if we don't throw major money around, having a PAC that can deliver a guaranteed voting bloc is worth it's weight in platinum when trying to influance politicians.

This is a primary tactic missing from our arsenal, and it would lend substantive organization to our effort as well, being able to consolidate our reasources into a single razor-point weapon aimed right at the RIAA's black, evil heart - it's profit.

Like it or not, to be effective, we NEED to do this.

-user

**There are more people using file sharing programs than voted for either candidate in the last presidental election.** -- thumbtack

It seems that there'd be more people file-sharing than had voted in ANY election of late, given the accelerating decline of voter participation over the last several decades.

The corruption viz the "New World Order" RIAA is so blatant, it's worse that what one saw in ancient Roman times. And their facade of moral and ethical superiority over everybody (including "subhuman" file-sharers) is especially insulting, given the industry's long-standing history of corruption and scamming of artists.

And I have not bought any "new" or "newly made" CD's from RIAA labels in over two years -- and I never will, ever again. Just used LP's, 45's and 78's for me, thanks.

. . . Xerxes' Persian armies against the Greeks . . . and the RIAA is Xerxes . . .

If I can't find CD's I want second hand, I don't buy them. I've been buying 75% of my music like that for a LONG time. I also use IUMA.com to find independant bands. As far as showing politicians what I think, I have written all my local, state, and federal representatives and informed them bluntly that my vote goes elsewhere if they side with the RIAA. These ancient laws and and whites lies are bulls**t and EVERYONE knows it.

This is sickening. More proof of the RIAA's lies and deceit. Apparently if you share even 5 songs that's "substantial" in their eyes.
This "871 subpoenas issued" deal - is that in the course of one week, or several weeks?

Actually, I think it's probably rather cheap to sue en masse. Sue one person on one charge, it costs alot. Sue tons of people, that's economies of scale.

I just had a frightening thought.

I don't think they're suing people to stop file-sharing.

I think they're suing people as a secondary source of income.

-- Funksaw

Been boycotting since Napster fell, though I still swap the occasional CD. Lots of people still look at this, say "that sucks" and don't change a thing. (How many of you will give up chocolate just because it's 80% slave labor, or Coke just because they refuse to give health care to their aid-infected african employees? I thought not.) Deal is, get your friends hooked on legally downloadable stuff, and be super paranoid about the illegal stuff. How many times have people said copying helps their profits? You won't change your friends' minds by waxing paranoid or political, so just make frequent gifts of ass-kicking indie art.

Viscix is absolutly correct go indie, boycott the major label stuff both on on off file sharing sytems they need us we don't need them. I have bought approx 100 Indie CDs in the past two years, at usually far reduced rates from the majors and the artist gets the bulk of the money. Click on the CDBaby link above and check out what they offer. If you can't find music there you like, I would be amazed. Did you know Thomas Dolby is indie? Or Carole King? NAtalie Merchant is going indie still working on her first indie Album..

Buy used. Jus tlike ford doesn't get any of the money from the sale of a used car the RIAA members don't get anything from used CD sales either, not after the first trip through.
Try here http://www.secondspin.com/index.cfm?From=sd-20834 We get a small cut off of each cd sold...not much but a bit..but most imortantly the RIAA Clowns don't get a freakin cent.

The RIAA gets its budget as a % of the sales of each label. So when you buy major label music, you are supporting the RIAA financially.

Yeah. Let'em start suing folks. There's nothing like a lot of bad publicity about a big rich bad-assed company suing poor college students. I'll enjoy watching the general public turning against the RIAA.

the end is coming.. for freedom or for riaa.. one or the other will surely die.

went to cdbay.com and ordered 5 cd's.
I like the idea of an artist getting a fair share of the money from the work they do and costing me less money. I just hope the RIAA would die a quicker death, I'm getting too impatient with the slow death it is currently experiencing.

Before bashing the RIAA & AOL situation, remember AOL's user base is mostly dial-up connections. That there is a good reason why they haven't been a target, dial-up users simply don't host music files on p2p software. What you need to look at instead of ranks of all ISP's, is ranks of broadband ISP's to see if RIAA is being fair in their targetting.

What an interesting dilema RIAA has shoved upon us: according to RIAA, to listen to a song, we must either (1) support terrorism, or (2) support corporate takeover of the US government... or there's (3) DON'T LISTEN TO RIAA MUSIC!!!

I think the decision to target downloaders of Avril Lavigne and Snoop Dogg could be a HUGE boost to boycott-riaa's chances. Given the demographics of their listner bases, the chances of the riaa suing just one sub-14 year old girl or a minority kid are pretty good. Tada, instant poster child. If the boycott movement can get just one televised (MTV) interview with someone like this the controversy around the RIAA's tactics would explode.

Imagine middle-America's reaction to 12 year old Sally Smith asking Avril (not the RIAA) why she is suing her parents because she likes to listen to her music. Can we even begin to imagine how black artists and action groups would respond when they find out that (white) coprorate America is trying to stop their music from being heard by an audience that has no other means to hear the minority's voice.

One well placed, well timed call from Boycott's leaders to MTV or the NAACP could easily do more "damage" than a hundred year boycott.

my ISP is time warner. I fear that there arn't any subpoenas directed at AOL/Time warner, cause they can just freely ask whats the info is for the client, seeing how its the same company. Its kinda funny. In the commercials that the AOL/Time Warner companys runs arround here, the main focus of it is music downloading!!!

I wonder if the RIAA reads this and is getting a clue of how many people hate them. Those idiots have no clue that they have tarnished their already evil image to the fullest extent. I will never buy another CD associated with RIAA and I have strong ties with new groups trying to make it big, so I will make sure to pass the word along. I am also in the process of starting a website to help give back to the unfortunate individuals who are getting their life savings and then some taken away by these assmonkeys.

"I think they're suing people as a secondary source of income."

--Funksaw

The RIAA better get used to the fact that it will be their ONLY source of income.

Shmoo, of Electric Gypsy
Support Local and Independent Music ONLY

Dakota,
I believe this statment is probably NOT true:
Before bashing the RIAA & AOL situation, remember AOL's user base is mostly dial-up connections. That there is a good reason why they haven't been a target, dial-up users simply don't host music files on p2p software.

I say:
Time warner is a cable company that is owned by the same company that AOL is. Why none to them? Also, AOL users still have AOL BROADBAND, which enables then to get on the net via either the cable or Phone line. If they continue to ignore themselves, i expect to call the RIAA and ask them point blank why or when are they going to SUE themselves.

Maybe all file sharers should get one of those free 6 month accounts on AOL and serve all of their music on AOL.
Then they'd have to face the music and sue themselves or ignore all of the AOL file sharing. They'd be forced to close accounts of thousands of their own users. I'd love to see how that would play out.

Maybe they aren't targeting Time Warner subscribers because they want to go after the competition and cripple them. Maybe they aren't targeting their own customers, but the customers of their competitors.

Let's face it, the primary allure of broadband is the ability to download huge amounts of data, MP3 included.

If Verizon customers are the sole targets, and they can no longer download music, they may just drop broadband altogether.

Do the math: 11 bucks/mo for dialup, or 45 bucks/mo for broadband.

It's gonna be a serious balancing act between the ISPs' desire to do business and their desire to avoid involvement in file sharing.

Look, do yourselves a favor, and stop consuming RIAA music. Give it a while, this is going to get more complicated as time goes on. Don't give the RIAA the opportunity to make any more money off you, either thought sales or court settlements.

Go indie. It ain't over til it's over.

Here is just a thought,
Perhaps the RIAA intends this to be a "swan song". Perhaps they have admitted to themselves that P2P is the mainstay of the internet, and that they have no control over it. Perhaps they have admitted that retirement is at hand for them.
So even if the RIAA is pissing the entire planet off, they are going to make one last big grab. I am willing to bet they have actually considered what percentages of lawsuits they will actually get paid from.

That would at least explain why they didn't attack their road runner clients in this first wave, but have choosen such very small targets.

The easiest way to sell someone broadband is to let them test drive it. I've got a number of friends
who always thought like you do, until I let them try it on my pc...Every person that has tried it has gone on to get broadband, 1 even moved so he could get broadband. Not one of them was one the net for music or movies..but to do research for school papers or their business. The amount of time saved more than offsets the additional cost.

One of the most positive things that I see is this, and it's almost off-topic, but not really.

I used to be in here each and every day, some days several times. Then I got busy and was basically off the Internet for 2 or 3 weeks. Now that I'm stopping in again, I notice that - just from looking at the posts on this article - our numbers are growing rapidly.

Either that or some people are picking up new user names.

The old guard is still here, carrying on the fight. But we seem to gain allies with each moronic action the RIAA takes. Their stupidity fuels our fight and is bringing more people into our camp.

Remember that the Indie artists outnumber the major by more than 10 to 1. The RIAA's days are numbered. Even more damaging than having no customers is having no one interested in recording contracts. It is going to be harder and harder for them to sink their talons into the "next big thing."

That is because we ARE the next big thing -- simply because they do not own us. They cannot buy us with their slavery contracts; we know that those advances are a financial death sentence.

And they can't touch our fans.

You guys here already know this. We've got to tell everyone else. Too many people still do not know who the RIAA is, much less what they're doing. And even those who have an inkling of what's going on still do not actually recognize what the RIAA stands for, either figuratively or literally.

We must make everyone understand, as quickly as possible.

Write your local papers, write your congressional representatives (I've already written to ALL of your senators), tell your friends, tell your Mom and tell her friends.

People get it when you lay it out in front of them. Everybody gets it. But you've got to tell them and make sure they know.

if anyone else flooded the system in this manner, they themselves would be subject of a court-battle.

If the RIAA is not going after AOL users, isn't this a key issue that Verizon should use as part of their legal defence in their appeal against the RIAA.

In fact, if the recording industry do not go after AOL users, then surely this tactic must be tantamount to the smoking gun - ie these threats and court orders are aimed to some extent at hurting their competition.

I have to admit, when I heard the numbers last night (nearly 900) I was amazed. The RIAA really is behaving like a wounded animal. These are typical of the last gasp efforts of something in it's death throes.

I was delighted to read that marches are being ordered on the streets for August 1st and 2nd. It is about time that politicians made their choice - between the public, artists and voters OR their big corporate friends in the recording business.

I was also delighted to see someone make a very strong case for a year long boycott of all RIAA CDs. I won't be buying any new CDs from these cunts.

Of course, we only have the information in the synopsis of one article to think that they aren't going to target AOL/TW users, but we all love a good conspiracy theory.

Thumbtack, I agree w/ your take on broadband usage. However, if a user is sued blue over file sharing, they'd be hard pressed to afford broadband, let alone a computer and internet service.

I like broadband because it's much easier to find and download drivers and software updates for my machines.

Streaming video and audio can't be beat, either.

Don't know how this will all end up, but I would think they're close to the edges of the envelope on public tolerance of their heavy handed tactics.

Wonder how many 12 year olds they'll have to attack before this blows up in the media?

Its finally started.

Judgeing from the sheer numbers, these are not very discriminatory. Surely the RIAA cant be planning on threatening every single user, but with numbers like this they might be trying it after all. Are they crazy? Even the RIAA cant keep up this for more than a week, and yet I wouldn't be surprised if they try to step the campaign up more soon. 871 potential victims - probably a lot more by now. The RIAA is probably going to reject a few, but most of them will recieve a threat demanding a few thousand dollars and the ones who refuse will simply be attacked by lawyers.

I expect an AOL executive just asked a friend at the RIAA to put AOL on an exclusion list

It will take time for these to filter through the corporate and government burocracy, so we wont see actual threat letters yet, but soon. A week or so, a month at most.

You are also going to see a demonstration of the incredible power of media manipulation. The RIAA has a lot of connections with TV companies, newspapers, radio, etc. So through they will be hated by the internet population, in the real world all people will hear about them is news reports of how the great RIAA is saveing artists from poverty by stoping the evil pirates who steal their music.

ISPs are and always have been scared of copyright holders because there is a lot of infringement and they are potentially responsible. It was various ISPs that lobbied for the much-abused "instant takedown" section of the DMCA, which states an ISP is not liable for an infringement comited by its user if, when informed of the infringement, it immediately removes the infringeing material (or kicks the user) without performing any investigation.

If the RIAA is so hungry for money, why dont they try being pro-active instead of being re-active? They should try to make something better than whats out there so people would come to them. But thats just my opinion.

One important thing to note: AOL isn't exempt from giving up it's file-sharing customers, AOL just doesn't need to be served a subpoena to do it. AOL will cough up the name of every file-sharing user on the say-so of Time/Warner, who make up a portion of the RIAA.

It sounds like downloaders should be very wary of using AOL's dial-up and broadband packages.

Boycott the buggers as well.

I never liked them anyway.

They just might fall of their own weight! Think if it...40 million subponas! Now if we could fire 'em with 40 million votes!

ARE YOU REGISTERED AND READY?

...and hey, Feisar, did i hear da-da-da-di-da-di-da-dum.(the Godfather theme..) OOPs! Probably illegal...

ARE YOU REGISTERED AND READY?

Two questions:

1) Gee...I wonder if I should be concerned for DLing Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" this morning?

2) Is there a rally scheduled for Austin, and if so, where & when?

Fuque the RIAA.

Hail to all Anti-RIAA brothers & sisters. I've been a lurker here for far too long. Im so sick of hearing how many lies the RIAA have spread to the various news medias and of course, our own government. They would actually have you believe that we are vicious CRIMINALS who are "supporting terrorism" and drug crimelords. I'm sure if they can find a way, the file-sharers will be blamed for a whole cornucopia of maladies & social problems of society. Didn't you know that filesharing causes STD's??? Oops, time to get the spyware condom!
The RIAA has a death grip on the consumers of this once great country (i'm referring to America, here)and they are going to get away with bullying all of us unless we ALL stand up TOGETHER and extend that rigid middle finger of freedom to the RIAA and anyone who supports THEIR terrorism.

nuff said my axe is ground

Well this is just a theory, but I was an AOL user back in the days when AOL 2.0 was the rave. If there is one thing I have to say about AOL it is that their service is sloooooww, riddled with disconnects and busy signals. I have a few friends on AOL 8.0 now and they say there hasn't really been any improvement. Infact it's worse because the software takes up so many system resources that it even makes your computer slow. All this snail paced internet I think deters anyone from doing much more than cheking e-mail, and looking at some websites (meaning 1 or 2 since you don't have enough hours in the day to look at more than that). A song download on Kazaa using AOL to connect would probably be at 1, 2 if you're lucky, Kbps. For a 4Mb file that would put somwhere around 1hr 45min to 2hrs per song. Tack on that uploading takes up what little bandwidth you have and you have one reason people might not use file sharing on AOL. The second, and this is not theory, is AOL doesn't offer broadband. They offer only software to work with an existing broadband connection. Verizon has cable modems and xDSL lines hence the reason they are getting nailed. The reason they are getting nailed so hard is because the RIAA has already broken this horse's spirit.

What I think is interesting is the fact that when Napster came out what three years ago AOL saw the possibilitys and allowed their programers to create GNUTELLA it was this program which created the modern file sharing platform. GNUTELLA created the ability to make basically a virtual network whereas Napster I beleive used a central network. Also when it was seen what MP3's could do SONY was an influential part of creating the MP3 Players which itself allowed users to carry their music much like a portable radio

I am also wondering something else...

With all the talk of AOL/Time-Warner's involvement (through its Warner Records division) in the RIAA, I wonder if merely boycotting AOL/Time-Warner's music division will be enough to make an impact on the RIAA?

I wonder if, perhaps, we may have to, sooner or later, expand our boycott of the RIAA to include not only AOL/Time-Warner's record labels & music division, but also some of its other media properties?

Among them...

HBO & Cinemax premium movie services
The WB broadcast TV network
Cable networks CNN, Headline News, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, Boomerang, and many other AOL/Time-Warner-owned networks

And, I don't think we should count on getting much coverage of our protests from MTV. MTV is listed on this website as a member of the RIAA too. I wonder if that also means we shouldn't count on CBS doing any coverage of the protests either, since they too are owned by Viacom (which owns MTV)?

If that's the case, I wonder if we also should consider not subscribing to Viacom's pay-cable networks Showtime, The Movie Channel, Flix, or The Sundance Channel?

It's going to be MIGHTY HARD to make a boycott of some of these record companies as effective as we would hope, cuz AOL/Time-Warner owns Worner Bros. Pictures too.

And Paramount Pictures is also owned by Viacom, which as I stated above, also owns MTV...a member of the RIAA.

What do you all think we should do regarding the media arms of these companies?

DeanSB2000

This is WAR! But, this isn't in Afghanistan or Iraq, it is right here on our shores, and it isn't an attack on foreigners, but an attack on the citizens of the US.

user65535 is right about the need for political action committee and money, and everyone is right about the boycott. In a war, you use every weapon at your dispostal. We need to use economic force, voting force, get everyone and their brother and sister involved. We need the news organizations on our side and also, ridicule these bastards...show them up for the idiotic, money grubbing assholes they are, and yes, they are obstructing justice by tying up the courts with frivilous lawsuits!

BOYCOTT THE BASTARDS! BAN THE BASTARDS!

The RIAA has gotten on my last nerve. They call us theives yet they are the ones stealing most of the artist's money.

It all started Lars Ulrich of metallica started whining like a little bitch about all the money they were losing from song swapping on napster. Maybe you should look at the RIAA exec whose making more money than you off of your music. I used to be a fan but I sold everything Metallica I had. I spend 40 dollars per concert, 20 dollars per cd and you're going to bitch cause I copied your song.

I will no longer give money to any company that i find out is a member of the RIAA. They've way overstepped their bounds and hopefully they get the bitchslapping that's coming to them.

Time to move over to Freenet. Completely anonymous file sharing. It is all encrypted. There is simply nothing better out there.
Read more about it at
http://freenetproject.org/

And in the next elections, can we please not put idiots in important political positions.
GET INVOLVED!

Hey, has there been any suggestion about starting a bluegrass defense fund for legal defenses of those targeted. Since there are millions of people using P2P, a couple of bucks times millions would be a considerable amount, and these folks are going to need legal representation.

Any thoughts>

~I'M REGISTERED AND READY~

BOYCOTT THE BASTARDS! BAN THE BASTARDS!

Imagine the scene if you will :
Cary $herman sits at his desk surrounded by toadies and lawyers. $herman says "What can we do about these snot nosed bastards downloading MP3s?" A pregnant silence ensues...
Rubbing his stubbly chin, one of the shysters gets a light bulb (a dim one) over his head and thinks...there are millions of file sharers...hmmm..millions for me...
and slowly, tentatively, his slimy voice oozes forth...
he raises his hand like a first grader needing to hit the toilet...
"Uh sir, we could sue them all under the DMCA..."
Excellent shouts $herman. That's it, we'll show these little bastards whose boss!" And so it goes.
For some levity...
check out...
http://www.campchaos.com/cartoons/napsterbad/sue_56k.html
Sue the World...sue all the children..

~registered and ready~
BOYTCOTT THE BASTARDS! BAN THE BASTARDS!

heres some tips on how to stay under the RIAAs radar.

1. use small local net providers

2. dont use mainstream p2p fileshare progs try a program called tesla its free and the i dont think the riaa knows about it yet or folloy #3.

3. when you download enough songs burn them to CD and delete them from your hard drive immediatly, they cant sue you for what they cant see or prove.

4. look into getting a firewall and/or IP spoofer the riaa probably couldnt employ a skilled hacker if they tried

5. if you normaly dont share what you download put it into a folder other than your shared ones and encrypt.

thats all i got, anyone want to add to this?

they cannot win this war, we will adapt and always remain several steps ahead
WE WILL BURY THEM

I'm a new member here, been sitting and reading various posts all over this site for the last hour.

I must say i totally agree with almost every single post in here, and most importantly the one reason we are here, to boycott the RIAA.

As of this moment, i am no longer buying any major label artist CDs, i will support only independant artists.

Being a musician myself, although not currently in a band, i totally disagree with all the RIAA bullshit.

Yeah, 5 songs may not sound like a lot, but at the obscene $150,000 potential judgement per song, that's a pretty chunk of change

And the fact that the lawsuits are going to surpass the US debtload shouldn't be a shock. Watch for the debtload to disappear after these lawsuits clear up, eh?

Well looks like the RIAA is going to take Metallica's battle with American kids to the home front. The RIAA has recently requested personal information on over 800 individuals who are sharing works owned by the big 5. These are not just Metallica works either. We have come a long way in just a few short years. I can remember when NAPSTER was shut down and now since there is no one to attack in Peer to Peer Networks, it seems the only choice they have is to attack individuals. I can also remember when I had no need for more than one hard drive or a cable connection. If they succeed in stopping people from sharing information in the information age, all I can say is I will once again have no need for a multiple hard drives and cable. So sad we have come to this point. I thought that the promise of the internet was to give us access to knowledge and it seems the next generation is going to not know many music works because they can’t pay for them. I’m just glad I have a huge store of music for my kids because it’s something I could never have paid for. I’m not too worried though considering Europeans have taken to American music and are well connected (Sweden has the highest internet connection per capita). I have traded files with people from Sweden, Spain, France, and Poland. It is not unusual to find shares of well over 300 GB (I’ve seen one with 1 terabyte, that’s 1000 GB!) of Mp3s and video from one user. As hard drive technology advances and gets cheaper (180 GB IBM is the same price as a 120 GB IBM one year ago). I expect the European shares to get larger and larger. It’s just a shame Americans will not get to take part in this information revolution since this government only has respect for property and not liberty. I don’t know what to say about the computer hardware industry after the lock down. Personally I’m not going to spend hundreds on another computer or on a cable connection if all I can do is chat on Yahoo, go to web sites and e-mail. Thank you Metallica I hope you add many more millions to your millions (when you make another decent album) because the cost to Americans is going to be great.

I agree with a lot that has been said, and im tryin to find some great indie rock bands, would anyone care to tell me what their top 5 indie bands are?

Can't say that I listen to Indy. At the moment, I'm more into de-lining the RIAA pockets.

$150,000 per song download? You got to be kidding me. What ever happened to the "Excessive Fines And Fees" amendment in the american constitution?

time for a change in this country. time for the people to get the power again. vote with your pocketbook...vote with your life...say no to all those who would rob us of freedom. we have more to fear from our own government and from the RIAA terrorists than any foreign nation.
we are the targets now. but, the best defense is a good offense.
i personally will not buy or listen to music from any group who is represented by the RIAA, nor watch any movie made by members of the MPAA. i have cable, and don't get to watch everything i want to there...i have radio and don't get to listen to everything i want to there...i have scores of CDs I and tapes i have purchased over the years...so i don't need the MPAA or the RIAA. screw em...put em out of business!
BOYCOTT THE BASTARDS! BAN THE BASTARDS!
~REGISTERED AND READY TO VOTE/ R U?~

I just can't find many of my old 8 track tapes online to download

870 users subpoena-ed a day, for 60,000,000 users. Doing the Math, thats 189+ YEARS to su us all. Have fun

To DeanSB2000,

I have begun the steps to boycott them, (Time Warner/AOL), 5 days ago, when I subcribed to a DSL competitor of theirs. And with the money I going to save, I given thought to buying a bass boat, or at least a bumper sticker from this site.
At the end of this month they have lost a customer. (I can hear a little squeaking starting in that wheel)!!!

I should point out that up to this month I was paying "Time Warner" a handsome fee of $215.oo a month.

I made a living out of finding clever solutions to very complex problems. I would like to offer a method to help end the RIAA filing individual lawsuits. If this is a stupid idea, just say so, no ego should get in the way of ideas. The root method of detection of said files shared is the key to bringing an end to the RIAA fun. The solution is to give them something to look at but, so much of it that cannot distinguish what's real and what's not. What makes it workable is that it appears certain titles/artist trigger their attention. So give them something to look at, a hobby. Fake MP3 file names, size varying etc. Then to prevent the p2p from flooding, p2p developers include hash list of songs (the fakes) not to upload. Change this weekly or daily, and they have a new hobby. Heck I can think of couple of ways to change the list on the fly, and really screw with them. This is a chance to find out who is really in charge. The RIAA, or US?

I would also like to claim my digital packets an original work or art, and use the DMCA law to sue them for even looking at my digital works.

Good thing I did not make a living from spelling.

Has anyone ever thought about doing what TheTruth.com © did? Get thousands of people to stand outside of the RIAA HQ?

riaa headquarters are too far away from me. Besides, those fat cat bastards just look out the window and laugh, or close the blinds. More effective, as CodeWarrior says, it to boycott, write representatives, contribute money to funds, and VOTE. You already have the weapons..now let's pull together and use them.

ARE YOU REGISTERED AND READY?

Jazzmary2U is right. The RIAA would LOVE to call the cops and press charges for trespassing. What the record labels are scared to death of, is that you will quit buying their crap. Believe it or not, these suits are drastic measures for them to do. They are under the false assumption that if you could not d/l the song files, you would have bought the CD...wrong...and now, even the people who were NOT downloading and were buying, are gonna quit buying.
We can put these bastards out of business with a unified boycott.
Stay strong..hang in there..
RIAA...SAY GOODNIGHT GRACIE!
BOYCOTT THE BASTARDS! BAN THE BASTARDS!

I sure am glad that everyone keeps bring up the obvious disparity in this witch hunt. HOW COME....
AOL (A Time Warner Company) has been SO on the skids that Time Warner considered dropping them from the name (ie: AOL Time Warner as opposed to Time Warner)...
WHY... are Verizon,Comcast and I'm sure many other major companies that provide _broadband_ connections being harassed, and yet.. AOL has not recieved a single "cease and desist" order, or a subpoena to provide names of people?
I KNOW I'm not the only person who sees this as completely one sided. The RIAA is now allowed to only sue companies it doesn't own or have vested interest in?
Sounds like a monopoly, or at the very least monopolistic pracices. Gate$ got his ass dragged into court for trying to get IE to work better with windows (please hold your opinions, I"m making a point here), and yet when the RIAA and the rest of the cartel sue everyone they _don't_ own, they aren't held to the same standards?
Anyone got the numbers? Can anyone GET the numbers?
ttmmm

my friend and I are going to stand out side of the only major place to sell RIAA label CD's urging people to boycott the RIAA and my mom has helped us make buttons and flyers...(sorry guys we dont have the money to buy the official boycott-riaa buttons in mass amounts) but we have over 200 flyers and 300 buttons.

The best thing about what's happening is that all this will mean that indie music will become important again - music will become important again. For too long the majors have had a stranglehold on what we've bought and now ?
And now we've taken the music back for ourselves !

FUCK EM ALL!

This is ours again now !!!!