Following news that the RIAA music police nailed a 12-year-old girl for alleged file sharing, "Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?" - US senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill) asked RIAA president Cary Sherman during a Senate Judiciary Hearing on porn, yesterday.

Sherman told Durbin the industry is merely trying to convey the message that sharing music is illegal, says an Associated Press story by Alex Veiga here.

It also says the RIAA's next round of lawsuits will come in about three weeks.

In the meanwhile, "The real hope here is that people will return to the record store," the story quotes Eric Garland, ceo of BigChampagne, which tracks p2p trends, as saying . "The biggest question is whether singling out a handful of copyright infringers will invigorate business or drive file- sharing further underground, further out of reach."

However, "Just because a person stops file-sharing does not mean they will start buying CDs and boost industry revenue, said Josh Bernoff," a Forrester Research analyst says.

"Many of these individuals have gotten out of the habit of buying CDs. They think CDs are too expensive, they only want a couple of tracks on the CD."

"You're not going to see legitimate services rise up to replace the rapid decline we've seen in CD sales," said Lee Black, senior analyst with Jupiter Research. "We'll continue to see a drop in the CD market."

Bernoff said consumers already think so little of the music companies that the lawsuits likely won't make much of a difference, adds the AP story.

"The industry has been backed into a corner, and their image is so bad, the lawsuits are not going to be much of a problem," he said.

These jerks are going to do and say EVERYTHING possible, to avoid acknowledging the boycott at all costs...
So, their ideas of the reasons why purchases are down include:
1) People don't like physical CDs anymore.
2) P2P is killing sales, yeah...that's the ticket!
3) CDs are too expensive.

OK, how about these reasons.
1) Suing your customer gets them so upset they don't want your product.
2) You turn out crappy product pretending to be music
3) The crap is mostly filler even when there is one decent song on a CD
4) See number one. We can't stand the name of the RIAA, the labels it represents, nor the "artists" now.

Howz THEM 4 Reasons ?

"Mr. Sherman,at long last, sir, have you no sense of decency? Have you no shame?"
~code

I have copied this sites addy to be passed to everyone I know and some people I don't know. I for one am buying no cd's until the money making bloodhounds backoff. If ever a time for people to come together this is it. The best way to hurt them is stop buying cd's altogether. Hit them where it will hurt the most their pockets.

After the law suits are over RIAA and noe is using p2p who are you goiug to blame next, Video games? softball at the local parks, high school and college sports??? you still have no clue do you.

right on, codewarrior. Couldn't have said it any better.

Up to this point, I'm not sure if the majority of music fans had such a low opinion of the RIAA member labels to the point where they refused to purchase CDs. "[C]onsumers already think so little of the music companies that the lawsuits likely won't make much of a difference,"
Up to this point, I think the RIAA was viewed as a necessary evil that could be dealt with, and that despite the fact that they were detested, it was on a idealistic level. After the lawsuits, I think people will begin to see their hatred towards the RIAA on a more pragmatic level, and actively and consciously avoid purchasing music. Contrary to the assertions of Bernoff, I think these lawsuits will further sharpen the decline in sales. Now it's not just a matter of passively supporting or not supporting the RIAA, it's time for vengeance and intentionally inflicting harm.

The only record stores I'll set foot in from now on are used ones, unless RIAA gets on their high horse about them, too. Idiots. Mark Q¿Q

why dont they sue peoples pets and say that cats and dogs are taking revenue away that could be used to purchase CDs?
next it will be blamed on solar flares and little green spacemen....as i said before this is laughable

If the RIAA backed off , I still will NEVER buy any thing from them again. Suing 12 year olds is as low as it gets. So RIAA keep your music it just doesn't sound good to me any more. Thanks for making me deaf.. I should sue you jerks!

Sorry to get off post here guy's,

To all Trolls and any one new, and ppl who come here to say that our movement
is useless, and to any one who say's p2p
is "hurting the Artist" read this article by courtney love
http://dir.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html
As I find more about the tactics of the RIAA and so beloved Artist then you wil see one ofthe maany reason's why we are boycotting. This movement is not about free downloads it is about a corporation that has a strangle holdon music as we know it. And we want this strangle hold to stop

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

Woodhead, Courtney math adds up to me not putting anymore money into pockets of the RIAA execs.

OK, let me check the logic here...

Not paying royalties, etc. is wrong. It is wrong enough to subpeona a 12 year old girl and grandparents, etc. and make them media examples.

However, by making a basically meaningless promise, they will 'forgive' thousands of 'violators'?

IF it is absolutely wrong, why offer amnesty? IF it is forgiveable, why not forgive the embarassing cases before they cause backlash?

RIAA complains that the costs of CDs are fixed and high, yet AOL sends me CDs with at least as much data as a music CD has, with often better packaging (LOVE those tins!) and advertising overhead- and they send them to me for free.

RIAA complains that for-pay Internet does not work right, and yet has never really tried it (at least for Windows).

I really hope the boycott works and sends the right message!

"Many of these individuals have gotten out of the habit of buying CDs. They think CDs are too expensive, they only want a couple of tracks on the CD."



it should be added that those people also stopped buying and wanted single tracks before peer to peer came along....hmmmm

Amnesty, Shamnesty, They are wanting thousands and millions of signed confessions of lawbreaking that are admissable in criminal courts, and before grand juries in the various states, so that, when the big push for criminal enforcement occurs, where the RIAA is trying to get the FBI to shut all the P2P sites down, they can make a big show of hauling in box after box of signed confessions with pictures, names , addresses, and lists of songs downloaded.

Come on folks, the RIAA's ultimate goal is not suing a 12 year old here and a 71 year old there, or an unemployed woman. They are out for one thing. They want to shut down ALL P2P networks, and then, once that is accomplished, open their own outlets for distribution, so they can monopolize that distribution channel.

I'm sorry to be gruff. But people are dancing around and around on this. Cary Sherman, Howard Berman, and the rest, have been bugging the DOJ and FBI to start arresting and charging P2P-ers under the Net Act. This is why they had the hearing on the 9th of September, to say that the P2P networks are just channels for kiddie porn, so they can shut them down.

How many agree with me on this?



"Mr. Sherman,at long last, sir, have you no sense of decency? Have you no shame?"
~code

Right, Code!! We just gotta let 'em know that SS-Jackbooted scaretactics won't work. Write your congressperson everyone.. NOW!!

I think Mr. Bernoff has a serious point, that CD sales will continue to drop no matter what the RIAA does. What's key here is that, despite an outdated business model, the industry resorts to suing customers. Truly a first in the world, and hopefully the last.

Codewarrior said: "They want to shut down ALL P2P networks, and then, once that is accomplished, open their own outlets for distribution, so they can monopolize that distribution channel."

You are WRONG. They don't want to shut down the P2P networks. They want to stop the illegal sharing of their property. And there is nothing wrong with that!

But let's face facts. Once the P2P networks don't have anything illegal to share, they will drop in popularity by about 90 percent or more. Because most people use them in an illegal manner. End of story.

We can still share copywritten material. Just as long as we don't have more than $1000.00 worth.

i once bought a music CD
I accidently bought the same CD from one of those mail-order catalogs. So i gave the CD to my friend for FREE.
Next thing i know i'm being sued by the RIAA for "giving away" music. My friend got sued for "uploading" it from me. Needless to say, I gave my friend a vicious beating within inches of his life...
true story

Just standing by and waiting for the last part of my prediction to come true. The lawsuits have come, CD sales continue to slump and will be the worst yet. The last part is the labels getting rid of the RIAA! If only it would happen sooner rather than later.

hey mroop

since you want to be a riaa troll why don't you present the boy named sue with my offer. it looks like this--

I can't stand it anymore. I'm not a diplomat, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a politician and I don't know what Jesus would do. Having grown up in the wild wild west, smack dab in he middle of "Billy the Kid" country, I only learned one way to deal with assholes.

Read this carefully, I'm not kidding. I am 100% serious.. cary "the Boy named sue" sheman, I challenge you to a fight. Let's get in the ring and settle this like men. 3 rounds, you and me, no bullshit. You say you are not up for the challenge? Ok pick your surrogate, mitch braincheese, orrin hatch, howard berman, senator conyers, that other fool who you guys sent to Taiwan. I don't care. Only two conditions,

1. since I'm not a pro you can't pick a pro (or even a lifetime amateur)to fight for you. Any of your bought and paid for congressmen are acceptable as is the spineless excuse for a human being who would serve a law suit to a 12 year old girl.

2. If I lose I will delete all my p2p apps and any files I have that you feel are questionable from my computer forever. If I win you drop ALL lawsuits against p2p users and swear never to sue anyone else for anything related to p2p downloading/uploading etc.

pretty fair deal. I'm waiting, coward.

lol...ignore the trolls.

"Mr. Sherman,at long last, sir, have you no sense of decency? Have you no shame?"
~code

Let's see...Pac-Bell has sued RIAA,
Webcasters Alliance has sued RIAA,
and now Eric and others have sued the RIAA...

They better stay lawyered up..cause they are gonna need 'em

Sharks in suits professing to know the law.
It's the funniest darn thing I ever saw.

Who cares anyway? If the cost of CDs is too high, maybe it is because of the existance of the RIAA, who gets an extra $5 per CD roughly after all of their charges!

To 'codewarrior' about "them 4 reasons": I'm surprised a fifth -- "free trade killing jobs = no money to buy CD's" -- hasn't been mentioned.

I'm not sure where they've gotten the grounds for such claim, but I, myself, love CDs. I love owning the CDs of my favorite artists.

However, I do not love the price of CDs or the quality of CDs. I am very proud to say that since p2p became popular, I have yet to buy one CD that I was disappointed in. Because of this fact, I have probably increased my CD purchases. Before p2p, I would wait until a friend or relative had the particular album, before risking the loss of funds.

Situations like this need to be addressed, not the one track solution that p2p = people don't buy CDs.

TIME TO STAND UP AND BOYCOTT!

FUCK THIS SHIT, HEY RIAA IM PASSING OUT THOUSANDS OF SONGS DAILY COME FUCKING GET ME COCKSUCKERS! who the fuck do these dumbasses think theyre fucking with? theyre going after 12 year old girls to fucking try and scare ME!? IN THE EVENT OF ANY RIAA ACTION AGAINST MYSELF, I WILL NOT HESITATE TO SPEARHEAD THE REMOVAL OF LIFE FROM RIAA CEO's/CHAIRMEN/AND OTHER PERSONAL. PLAY TIME IS OVER, YOU PASSED THE LINE GOING AFTER A LITTLE GIRL, NOW YOURE GONNA FUCKING DEAL WITH SOME REAL MOTHERFUCKERS. RIAA IS CHICKENSHIT!

bring all the fucking lawyers you got CARY SHERMAN, it dont matter, i dont fight behind lawyers, I FIGHT WITH MY HEART AND MY FISTS. 1420 S candish ave,glendora CA, heres my address, BRING IT.

so much for watching our language to prevent filrering software from filtering boycott-riaa... lol

drop a fucking gonad and get out of the fetal position yfoogsittam. what its gonna come down to is FORCE, OPPOSING FORCE.

I would really appreciated it if you people would calm down you're language. People come here and they see that and they think we're all like that. It does nothing but hurt our cause. I swear quite a bit in daily life, but I've found better ways to express myself online than swearing like an idiot whenever I'm mad. Please try to keep it clean for the benefit of the boycott. And to those that are making physcial threats, please stop. There are so many better ways to express your disgust than saying you'll fight them. Try to keep in mind that this is not a physical battle, it's a battle of words and wit.


Ok, I'm better now

F***-the-riaa,

if it will make you feel better scroll up and read my challenge to the boy named sue. I don't believe he will take it but it'd be fun

HEY YOU FUCKING PEICE OF SHIT MORON, IM NOT TRYING TO LOOK GOOD FOR LAWYERS AND BULLSHIT LIKE THAT, PEOPLE CAN READ DIFFERENT PEOPLES POSTS AND SEE WHOS WHO YOU FUCKING MORON, OF COURSE I DONT REPRESENT ANY OF YOU, IM TALKING ABOUT ME! and if you think your fucking words and wit are enough youre dead wrong, all these people want is their fucking money, im not about words and wit im about action, ill seriously take anyone out that comes after me, fucking chickenshit mother fuckers bullying a little girl, lets see them do that shit to me

captdunsel, you should be ashamed of yourself...challenging a girl to a fight, lol

mroop, go back into your RIAA infested hole you maggot.

Soon average people will wake up and realize what these maggots are doing
and start sueing THEM for their inhumane actions. you shouldnt treat your customers like crap. its like me being the manager of a Quik-E-Mart and sueing ppl for not buying cheetos...ok bad analogy but you get what im saying.

mrbonzo wrote:
"I'm not sure where they've gotten the grounds for such claim, but I, myself, love CDs. I love owning the CDs of my favorite artists."

I personally agree with this. To me, Boycott-RIAA does not mean boycott ALL artists. I have found quite a few good artists that are independent or on obscure labels and I have purchased quite a few CD's this year. Like mrbonzo, I've avoided the big stinker. I d/l and burn a CD and listen for several weeks first. If I like it, I go buy it, if not... I wasted a CDR.

If there's only one or two good songs, then I keep 'em as mp3 and I'm ahead $16.00.

I also refuse to pay $16.00 for a CD from the 70's or 80's where I know the artist now get's next to nothing. I'll go on eBay first.

Mroop look I'm downloading songs right now! What are you going to do about it?

"HEY YOU FUCKING PEICE OF SHIT MORON, IM NOT TRYING TO LOOK GOOD FOR LAWYERS AND BULLSHIT LIKE THAT, PEOPLE CAN READ DIFFERENT PEOPLES POSTS AND SEE WHOS WHO YOU FUCKING MORON, OF COURSE I DONT REPRESENT ANY OF YOU, IM TALKING ABOUT ME! and if you think your fucking words and wit are enough youre dead wrong, all these people want is their fucking money, im not about words and wit im about action, ill seriously take anyone out that comes after me, fucking chickenshit mother fuckers bullying a little girl, lets see them do that shit to me"

Actually I was referring to the people that come to this site for the first time. If they see people just rampantly swearing it destroys the idea that we're educated people. Doesn't leave many people with a good first impression and those people likely won't come back. Incessant swearing adds nothing to your post, it only takes away from what people think of it.

Face it the Internet is evil...just pure evil and thank God for people like Orrin Hatch to save us from the Devil!

We can't have people having easy access to songs, poems, porn, political commentary not connected to the mainstream-media-co-dependent-with-Madison Avenue disinformation superstructure; we can't allow religious "nuts" to air their beliefs; we can't have neo-Nazis, skinheads, Commies, and Socialists using the internet to air their beliefs; all of these numerous message boards with people expressing their dangerous views on everything from the mundane to the sublime; people from different races, cultures, religions, and *gasp* different countries actually talking to each other? Sounds like Armageddon!

People enacting fantasies in chat rooms...MARRIED people even!

They tried to tax the internet; they are intent on eavesdropping and spying in the name of "national security" and protecting 38 year old police officers playing 14 year olds (way too convincingly...think about it, makes ya wonder!) from being raped by dirty old men in trench coats.

They must stop all the bestiality, homosexuality, kiddie porn, bondage, and fetish stuff that pops up instantly on every 17 and unders' PC as soon as they log on!

The Internet NEEDS to be corralled, controlled, taxed, and marketed...only then can we be truly safe from stuff like freedom.

people need to see our anger, frustration. especially those pieces of crap in the RIAA.

something ive noticed those, prior to the lawsuits the anger wasn't that high and there was alot of tepidness. since the suing of this lil girl. ive seen a sharp rise in people that are angry at these people.

this is our rally cry, this is shot that awakens the sleeping giant. more and more people will turn off the sports, and pornography and join the fight.

Senator Durbin really said that? That's priceless!

And out of the woodwork come the maniacs, morons and malcontents. Something I figured would happen.It's great that our numbers are rising, but people, if you can't type something civil and use some decorum please refrain from typing.

Thank you.

ILUVELPEES, I second that. Nonmembers of this forum may already be a bit shy about joining a movement that may be foreign to them.

Their disgust at present developments from the RIAA is probably what leads them here, and we need to appear more civil and humane than the enemy.

Exactly, thank you both!

i agree

Im with all you reasonable people here. Now go donate some money so we can get a representative from this website on the Music Wars show. And keep supporting Indie music!

So who is going to get a gun and start shooting these people. I'm Mad enough to do it. If you wanna steal from a 12 year old you deserve to be shot. Death to all RIAA members

smartassologist! NO DON'T STOP BUYING CD'S!!! Just buy CD's SMARTER. If you have to buy an album from a band that is an RIAA-label whore just buy used, but it would be cool if there was an insurgence of people buying music from INDEPENDENT artists like those found on CDBaby.com. I am one of them. Hollis and the Mighty McGregor.

While I was away....

This past Sunday, I wanted to watch the doubleheader football game on the Fox Network. I
checked the local TV listing, and the code on the listing for those games 519755 and 500007,
which I think I can use to set my VCR up for to record on the VCR so that I could watch it later. I
still want to watch those games when I am at home.

Will I break the law?

btw, excuse my anger, i'll try to be more civil in the future. just something like this makes me mad. so i'll refrain from any anger posts in the future. a public appology from me.

I reciently went into Circuit city and looked at the selection of CDs? that they had. Many of the CDs did not even have the compact disk logo on them. Is the RIAa changing the code? I heard Phillips may sue the RIAa AND all of the big 5 for screwing with their patent on CDs. That would be a giant with money taking on the RIAa.

Also most of the CDs were already $13.99, looks like UMG failed. Why don't you try $6.99.

Kids? Sure prey on the weak.

A 12 year old is hardly someone to go after. It's clear they are just a bunch of bullies. Let's see em go after someone who has some real cash behind their names. Like a millionairs kid or something. Then we'll see em fight.

Artist Against the RIAA
http://noriaa.the-erm.com

A new math question ,coming to schools near you.


Suzie has 1000 illegal mp3s on her computer that she pirated with Kazaa.
Billy has 1500 illegally obtained music files wich he stole using Grokster.
The good, law abideing folks at the RIAA, are going to sue their parents for $150,000 for each offending file.
How much money will their parents save if they become good citizens by destroying the offending files and signing the amnesty agreement?


This, of course, is tounge-in-cheeck now, but what about the future?

WABBITMAN

I don't know if this is in bad taste, but I wouldn't mind if some plane (in autopilot mode) landed right in RIAA's office...
Well, if they continue to upset millions of customers, threatening to put them in jail or devoid of their properties, someone will definitely try to do his own justice. I think some fool could even try to kill them.

These guys at RIAA are very courageous... or maybe just blinded by the gleam of dollars...

At 12 years old, that girl is barely above the age of criminal responsibility. How can she possibly fight a legal battle against a business which controls a good chunk of the entertainment industry?
I reckon CD sales have taken a slump simply because (a) they are too expensive and (b) all we have to choose from is manufactured pop.
The RIAA can't handle this and so they need a scapegoat. That's right- us.
But I know for certain that there are over 4,000,000 KaZaA users. They can't possibly sue all of us. So why don't they just shut down KaZaA, IMesh etc... and see how big a protest everyone makes then?

First off, anger posts are all fine and good. They're essential in this battle because they express what all of us feel. It's just that there are better ways to do it than swearing a lot.

And TrekkieGirl, they tried just shutting p2p programs down (remember audiogalaxy) but people just moved to a different program. They've realized that shutting down p2p programs is a pointless waste of money because that won't ever stop it, we all move on to the next one. Now, their scare tactics actually work to stop a number of people from using a p2p. So they resort to terrorism and mafia tactics to get their way. All we have to do is boycott them, if they don't have our money they can't scare us anymore. Support local and independent music, so much talent out there that you won't be hurting for great music.

I have a premonition. The RIAA is going to wake up one morning and find itself very alone. Cary Sue crying in his cornflakes while Mitch Braindead runs down an empty hallway screaming "Where did everybody go?" A janitor steps around from the corridor and calmly says "They've all filed suits to get out of their contracts and are suing you for casuding them to lose millions over the past few years." Becasue someday (some of)these artists are going come out of the RIAA daze and realise they have true fans that will support them without greedy moneygrubbing policial greasing scumbag noncaring whores like the RIAA. Then Mitch and Cary Sue can crawl back into their slimepits and return to workforce for a living screwing another section of the public until they wear out their welcome there!

Oh yeah, and everyone, please don't even insinuate(Sp?) deaththreats on this website. It's not good pr for our side. We gotta be above that silliness.