The RIAA's sue 'em all subpoena campaign is working, says the NDP group, although, "[...] we can't say categorically that the RIAA's legal efforts are the sole cause for the reduction in file acquisition," observes company vp Russ Crupnick.

NDP draws this conclusion from its findings that the number of households 'acquiring' music files reached a high of 14.5 million, but in May the number fell to 12.7 million and declined again in June to 10.4 million households.

The company, which counts adidas International, Electronic Arts, Campbell Soup, Maple Leaf Foodservice, Sega America and Wrigley as clients, doesn't say how, when, where or among how many people its research was conducted.

As far as data go, it quotes an RIAA press release entitled 'Judge Decides in RIAA's Favor Again in Verizon Case,' along with "reports of subsequent legal efforts by the RIAA to target individual file sharers" as grounds for suggesting, "fear of record industry subpoenas have [sic] led many consumers to curtail peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing".

Crupnick concludes, "A near-term decline in file-sharing activity should hearten music industry executives, because the bulk of this activity can be ascribed to illegal P2P sites; however, it will be interesting to see in the future if these numbers turn upward again, as new paid online music services begin to break through."

We can hardly wait.

[August 22 Update - NPD said its findings were based on an NPD MusicLab survey of more than 6,000 consumers conducted in March 2003.]

I believe the RIAA has painted itself into a corner. I am certain that record sales have dropped. And, if you follow the lies they push, the drop in sales was due to the increase in file sharing. Ipso facto, then a drop in filesharing should equal a rise in CD sales? N'est pas? But, if they want to push the idea that P2P music downloads have dropped, they will be hard pressed to explain a drop in sales in July and August, with regard to what part MP3 downloads had anything to do with it.

The best way to fight lies is to keep telling the truth, loudly and doing it over and over and over.
~code

They released absolutely NO data on how they obtained these statistics. What kind of samples did they use? How much of a statistical error would they have from these methods? If the statistical error is high than technically, you cannot reject the hypothesis that perhaps filesharing has NOT gone down and the only reason that the numbers are lower are from statistic sampling error. But theres more to the story. There is also non-sampling error which can do even more harm to these kind of reports. Even the shittiest of polls usually report at least their sampling error. +/- some kinda number.

If you just see statistics, they are worth absolutely DICK unless you also know the methodology.

Best explanation of the RIAA letter I have ever read.
http://www.azoz.com/news2/investigate.html

Inflaion adjusted prices----a repost because its so far down in the thread on the other news item.

eh.net/hmit/ppowerusd

The site will tell you how much purchasing power a certain amount of money from a particular year is worth in today's dollars.

$10.89 in the year 2002 has the same "purchase power" as $5.50 in the year 1981. $5.50 was the amount we paid for a Billy Joel LP in 1981.

So back in 1981 we were only paying the equivalent of $10.89 ( in 2002 dollars) for an LP record.

In 2002, we were paying around 17 dollars for an LP Compact Disc, costs of course have come down in manufacturing, shipping, etc, not too mention CDs cost MUCH less to produce than old 33s. So whats happening here? I think we can all figure it out.

This site botches up my link every time. here is the full link

http://eh.net/hmit/ppowerusd

if you have to delete the br from the end. Someone please tell me the finer points of posting links here.

Gettting an acurate number of people usin p2p is almost imposible.
Yes, people are afraid.
Iread yesterday that a father of a girl erase all her mp3.
The culture of fear really works.
Fear is the way companies sell.
If you don't beleive me watch "Bowlin for columbine".
Commeecial seys to you: "if you have bad breath people won't talk to you","if you have pimples, girls won't fuck you" and now the RIAA says "If you don't start buying more cd's you're going to jail"
Terrorism,RIAA,worms,Blackouts: Fear is really powerfull.

This is good news. As CodeWarrior points out, if both CD sales and filesharing drop at the same time, the RIAA won't have filesharing to use as a scapegoat. The only thing that we'd have to be concerned about is if CD sales are rising. That seems very unlikely to me. However, we must keep pushing this boycott.

You're right i even stop sharing RIAA songs, because we know that downloading leads to more sales i only share indie music.

Otech, that website link was GREAT. I really liked their analysis of the stupid cary-sue letter.

Otech, thanks for the promo on my analysis. I'm going to have to send a copy to Sen. Coleman.

I would have to agree with the headline on this article, though. The RIAA campaign IS working. It's bringing more and more people into caring about the abuse of power that the industry seems to enjoy, CD sales are dropping at an accelerated rate and now the RIAA is the subject of several investigations.

I never seen a corporate suicide take place before. Sony creates CD burners, AOL pushes broadband, the RIAA sues music fans and invites governmental oversight.

Keep boycotting. It's definitely working. They're flailing in the quicksand of their own stupidity at a rapidly accelerating pace.

Soon they will be gone. When they die, the music will come back to life. But not until.

My findings show that kazaa numbers are down. On the other hand, if you tell a LIE, people are BOUND to believe it no matter what.

And what does NDP stand for anyway? National Dumbass Patrol?

I wouldn't be surprised to see the RIAA fudge the numbers and conclude now that P2P numbers are dropping, CD sales are rising. Then they'll say they were right all along and now they are winning against P2P. They are such liars that they'll bend the truth to be whatever they want it to be and a lot of people will believe them. Maybe I'm paranoid but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

I loved what soulwax said here, to quote you

"If you don't start buying more cd's you're going to jail"

Is that what the riaa is really saying?
If that be the case, then THEY are guilty of blackmailing!

IFeelFree, I was just thinking the same thing. We already KNOW the RIAA lies to suit its needs.

They can fudge numbers all they want, but if their sales are dying in the water, the money won't be there. Sooner or later the truth WILL come out.

One day, one of the rats on the inside will get screwed over, and go out looking to blow a few whistles and point a few fingers. There is no honor amongst thieves.

It won't happen overnite, but we need to keep up the boycott. Cut off their source of money. Cooking the books only lasts as long as you have ingredients for your recipe.

“If you are involved in, or have any interest in the marketing research field… …for information on the market research industry.”

http://www.researchinfo.com/

And, more specifically:

http://www.researchinfo.com/docs/calculators/index.cfm

Calculators require version 4.0 or higher of Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.
· Incidence
· Response Rate
· Cooperation Rate
· Sample Size

(Check out the sample size for the entire nation’s population with only +/- 3% sampling error – lol)

“This Sample Size Calculator is presented as a public service of Creative Research Systems. You can use it to determine how many people you need to interview in order to get results that reflect the target population as precisely as needed.”

Confidence Level: The choices are; 95% or 99% (pick: 99%)

Confidence Interval: (enter: 3) – that’s to produce results that are +/- 3%

Population: (pick/ enter: 250000000) Americans

Click: Calculate

Results are then shown as:

Sample size needed: (this is the calculated number of participants necessary)
SEE THE RESULT ! SEE THE NUMBER !

(This is the calculated number of participants necessary to be able to say

“Based on the number of people we sampled and with an error of only +/- 3% I am confident 99% of the American people will…”

LOL

(“SnakeOil Salesman? Who’s a SnakeOil Salesman?”)

(ROTFLMAO)

gdZiemann, great analysis man..good work!
And, responding to an important observation that Soulwax made, yes, the RIAA has tried to induce fear, and many people have gotten afraid, but the human brain and emotions are not static, unchanging objects. Fear and anger are both mediated in part by a part of the brain called the amygdala (depending on which part you stimulate, you can generate one or the other). Fear is a powerful emotion, and when people are conditioned to fear something a lot (or a group or a person), they begin to develop resentment. When this fear continues, resentment grows, and resentment can reach a critical mass such that it turns into anger. Anger, which is not allowed to diffuse, can turn to rage.
Thus, there can be a continuum which leads from fear to rage. Many people are in the fear side now. As the cases go to court and more coverage happens on the news, and the RIAA, MPAA, and others become more repressive and obnoxious, this fear will start turning to anger. Once they have reached the anger stage on the continuum, the impetus moves from trying to hide and avoid becoming a target, to finally saying, "This has gone too far, time to do something."
Rage is the final stop on this continuum, and action is almost a given at that point of emotional intensity.

By intentionally instilling great fear, they have sown the seeds to their own destruction, and will reap the whirlwind.
~code

The basic premise of the RIAA is that online file sharing is killing CD sales. They state this over and over without any real proof. It is undoubtably true that during the past few years CD sales have been falling, but can it be attributed to online file sharing? If, over the next few months, both file sharing and CD sales fall, this will invalidate their entire argument. This will also undermine their credibility. This is probably the best thing that could happen. Their most important criticism of file sharing - that it is killing their industry - will be exposed as a falsehood.

Remember that there are many average Americans who are not connected with the recording industry or P2P and, although not well informed, many of them oppose file sharing for various reasons. If the economic argument - that we're destroying the recording industry - can be take away, another argument against file sharing from their perspective is the "moral" argument - it is wrong to "steal". Of course, we know that copying something is not the same as stealing it. We are not depriving the owner of anything. But is it a kind of "theft", in the sense that we're taking something that doesn't belong to us? If it turns out that file sharing encourages CD purchases because it allows one to sample the music before buying, then it's harder to make that argument. The artist and copyright owner aren't really being deprived of profits overall. (Of course, some artists might lose and some might win if consumers can find out before buying just how good or crappy the artist's latest album is.) If file sharing is not hurting CD sales and copying is not stealing in the conventional sense then the only "moral" argument could be that you should not be allowed to download music because the artist or copyright holder doesn't want you to and it's their right because they own it. That's an extremely weak argument, it seems to me. That's like saying I can't look at your new car because you don't want me to. There must be some limitations to the rights that ownership gives you. I'm only speaking about the "moral" argument, not the legal one.

Finally, there's the legal argument. File sharing is wrong because the law says so. I can't argue with that. According to the DMCA, file sharing is copyright infringement and it's illegal. But if file sharing does not hurt CD sales, and may even be a form of free advertising, then we have to conclude that the law is arbitrary and unnecessary.

That's why demonstrating that there is no link between file sharing and CD sales is so important. It invalidates all of the arguments against file sharing. Without this correlation, the economic, moral, and legal arguments against file sharing are negated or extremely weakened. There are many average Americans who oppose file sharing. If file sharing and CD sales both drop, I think it will become increasingly obvious to them that the RIAA is crying wolf. In the meantime, we need to spread the word about the boycott.

Forgive me for rambling...

*Sighs* Once again, I must point out that last year, music sales declined in the 16-20% range- compare that to a 25% reduction in releases.

The RIAA should be happy; they saw an increase in sales last year.

I believe figures will show that music sales will drop again this year, in addition to the drop in file sharing. The RIAA will again blame p2p, and the lawsuits will not stop, CD prices will continue to increase, and the artists will continue to get raped in the pocketbook.

So keep leaving those articles in public places, keep writing your congressmen, keep writing the media outlets. I can assure you that the tide of public opinion will shift against the industry by the end of the year.

excellent analysis. i think it applies to germany, too: the german phonographic society announced to crack down against "illegal filesharing" just like the RIAA. the chairman Gebhardt even wants the European union to pass a bill which would outlaw mp3 players or other means of recording mp3s since according to him nowadays nobody really needs a backup copy anymore. yeah, right. many cds here are copy protected and circumventing the copy protection is illegal, even though it's legal to make a backup copy! that's why we pay 10Euro on each cd burner we buy. so we pay 10Euro for nothing.
i personally will not put up with them branding us consumers pirates and thieves and criminals. i will be boycotting their cds from now on. nor will i be downloading any of their mp3s for 50c! and whoever i meet, i will be asking them to boycott cds. i own over 600 cds. FIGHT THE POWER!

Just wanted to let you all know it's back up and running

http://www.dontbuymusic.com/

Fear is a great tool! And the lack of education is also! The Government failed to educated the public on nuclear power! Everybody connected the bomb to it FEAR!. After the 3mile Island incident commericalized nuclear power was dead. The patroit act also is fear driven. Instill fear in people and you can push through legislation in a hurry. So yes the RIAA has come to the final stage of their slow death. It will only be a matter of time. I say BOYCOTT THEM TO DEATH!

George , your explanation of the RIAA letter was great ! You da man!

Yeah, the RIAA's campaign is "working" -- not unlike Fidel Castro's crackdown on 75 dissidents and journalists in Cuba in April having "worked," likewise China's hardline crackdown on pro-democracy activists in the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. And ditto for the Soviets' crackdown on democracy in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Hungary in 1956 . . . Seems that as far as the RIAA is concerned, tyranny, totalitarianism and police-statism "work" far better and more effectively than the "messy" (per Benjamin Franklin) democratic processes and safeguards that they obviously see as an impediment to their imperialist-style, New World Order-wannabe aspirations.

Sue 'em all IS working. Hell, when I first found out about it, I deleted all my MP3s, and uninstalled file sharing apps.

I then bought up all the albums that I wanted to keep (used)

But instead of me filesharing? Now I won't ever buy RIAA music again.

The Sue 'em all campaign is ridiculous.

Sue 'em all requires people to fear the RIAA. It is designed to get people to fear filesharing, but let's face it, if it wasn't for the RIAA/MPAA, there'd be nothing, really, to fear. So the only people who are going to stop filesharing are the people who A) Know about the RIAA, B) Fear the RIAA.

Now if you know and fear the RIAA, do you think you're going to continue giving the RIAA money to bully you? Granted, the average American's intelligence isn't exactly something to write home about, but I think that if someone hears: "The record companies are going to sue you if you keep file-sharing, most people will either stop filesharing, stop uploading, but they'll also stop buying RIAA albums."

A few years ago, the RIAA, in the public mind, was the company that gave out gold and platinum records.

Now, the RIAA is known as the greedy lobby group which storms congress and sues college kids.

-- Funksaw

Funksaw:

Good point. This boycott will build steam because of the RIAA's own actions. The RIAA is treating the consumer with such contempt and "what goes around, comes around".

FunkSaw....See I wish Id see more and more people like you who has that attitude. But I think too many people are so friggin radio driven or perhaps a lot of people still think it's THE only place to get music. XM Satellite has a station that hosts indie music which is a start...but we as savvy net users need to spread the word and get more and more people to tune into indie record stores/online stores/indie internet radio for those who work during the day. Word of mouth is a lot more powerful than one thinks. I gotten almost 20 people in the week to check out cdbaby and indie radio stations mostly b/c theyre very disgruntled about listening to top 40 every hour and the prices/quality of cd's.

Yet the record industry f*ckers still insist its p2p/p2p/p2p/p2p. Blah Blah. Most people 30+ y/o do not buy as much CDs because a lot of us dont like listening to screaming whores yodeling like Mariah Scary for over half the time of their shitty overproduced songs. It scares my dog. So they produced this American Idle where these talentless media whores compete this elusive recording contract prize. omg What a doozy.
Congratulations...you signed away your life/your name and for the extra bonus...you will be indebted to us in servitude with our recoupment expenses and leftover royalties. (Social Security sounds better God.)


Code Warrior
I hope youre right. As a typical pessimistic gen X'r tho...we really dont know whats going out there. We cant assume that every filesharer is tech savvy enough to understand or even care to risk the wrath of the recording industry of the asshole association. Time will tell I guess.

Scary thing of all of this is that I think our society is de-evolving back to the PRE-Vietname War days when we should shut our damm mouths..trust the government and the corps that they will take good care of us.

Funksaw, I did pretty much the same thing you did, then I took a look around and decided the RIAA could go straight to Hell.

No downloading? Hey, RIAA, no problem. Now that also means no buying. Hope you like it that way, cause it's never going back to the way it was.

My son and I are looking at all the indie stuff, and we're wondering why it took us so long to check it out. I have to actually thank the RIAA for the help they're giving the indies.

The RIAA will eventually wish they had never brought this much attention upon themselves. 'Sue 'em all' is quickly turning into 'boycott 'em all'.

i'm an idiot, what's the NDP?

I know them as the new democratic party of Canada.... uuh

I must agree totally with what has been said here.

Fear WILL lead to resentment, which in turn WILL lead to anger, and that in turn WILL lead to rage!!

I'm at the anger stage right now, but I'm increasingly bordering on rage!!

I'm getting MIGHTY SICK AND DAMNED TIRED of the fucking RIAA deciding what music I'll listen to, and deciding how I'll get it, and the terms under which I'll be allowed to listen to it!!

The RIAA are a bunch of GOD-DAMNED CROOKS!!

And as to the artists in the musicunited website and their "opinion" against file-sharing, I think they're not REALLY stating their TRUE opinions...but instead are simply "TOWING THE COMPANY LINE"!!!

DeanSB2000

yeah i did the same thing... August 1 i dumped all RIAA material and only share independents and our own stuff. Everyone i see that loves music i tell them and give them the DMusic site and Boycott-RIAA.. imagine if all of us just in this thread got five to ten people to join in this fight and they did the same.....


its not revenge we want its a reckoning

There is a big possibility that the reason for a drop in the total # of downloads is because the RIAA has scared many college networks into installing p2p prohibiting devices like packeteer (http://www.packeteer.com).

Just take the average # of college residents multiply that by the # of colleges in the united states. That is the total # of people that have been taken from our p2p community. Just that is millions of files that have been lost from sharing. Not to mention most of the fast downloads come from us college kids.

There is a big possibility that the reason for a drop in the total # of downloads is because the RIAA has scared many college networks into installing p2p prohibiting devices like packeteer (http://www.packeteer.com).

Just take the average # of college residents multiply that by the # of colleges in the united states. That is the total # of people that have been taken from our p2p community. Just that is millions of files that have been lost from sharing. Not to mention most of the fast downloads come from us college kids.

its not revenge we want its a reckoning


Amen

Hey Dino - I think you're already at "rage". Just like the rest of us. That's a GOOD thing.

Date: August 22, 2003 @ 2:32 AM
HMMMMMMMMMM let me see a 40 billion dollar industry is haveing trouble paying their employees....... Does anyone in here even know an riaa employee???? To tell you the truth i have never even meet an riaa employee. So there cant be that many. So, unless they are paying their employees a
$h!T-load of money where does all of this cash go?
I CALL A VOTE
Vote for the place where all of the money is going.

1 Artist
2 Lawers
3 CEO's wife's Boob-jobs/face-lift's
4 New Hair for the CEO
5 senators
6 Employees
7 Cost of distrabution
IF YOU HAVE ONE TO ADD THEN PLEASE ADD
I vOtE fOrE nUmBeR 3

Much as I hate to say it, big12inch the spammer did make a good point four posts ago. A significent number of p2p users are likely to be forced off university networks as administrators, haveing nightmares involveing trucks full of RIAA complaints, install filtering programs.

This whole copyright/trademark crap has gotten WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY out of control. FoxNews has now sued comic Al Franken for using the words "Fair and Balanced" on his book cover of his newest book that is sold out on Amazon, even though it hasn't even been PUBLISHED yet. Fox News claims to have TRADEMARKED the words "Fair and Balanced". They are also upset that there is a tiny picture of Shill O'Whiney (some know him as Bill O'Reilly) on the cover, along with the pix of many other folks.
These "Awholes" should NEVER have been allowed to trademark works used in common parlance together. BRRRR...get's my bile a flowin'!
~code

Sorry I'm late on responding on this article but it seems they are only looking at the "mainstream" P2P services. There are a lot of people who are now using alternative methods of trading. I think they're using "selective" statistics to prove their point. It is truly difficult to actually judge how many music files are changing hands everyday. Just more "spin"

MY Campaign is working a bit also, everywhere I go Im spreading the link to Dmusic and boycott-riaa. Im letting fellow musicians know that contracts are really as evil as the rumors say and that Dmusic is where I post my stuff (my crap?) When I visit PC shops somehow every PC with an active net connection is on boycott-riaa.com by the time I leave , my local music store got shown the sites last time I was in (Instamental Music, S. James St Ludington MI, they get a free plug cuz Ive been shopping there for 20 yrs now), everyone I visit gets shown the sites and quite often the link is in my messenger nick. The riaa has their campaign, we can have ours

VampireMoon1369- I ESPECIALLY like you leaving active boxes with the boycott-riaa.com showing!!!! That's great!
==>>>>=======================>
~code