Here's a chain letter for you >>>

If you don't pass this on, you'll have 13 months of bad luck. This starts with a call from the riaa tomorrow asking for $150,000 for each song you've ever recorded from a friend.

Oooookay.

So what's it all about?

It's yet another way for you to stick your finger in the RIAA's eye and it's the idea of a Toronto couple who've had enough of the RIAA, the labels and just about everything else associated with the 'traditional' music industry.

Tracy and Paul have just put up a web page with the basic message, "boycott the riaa (Ahhhh .... a familiar refrain : ) don’t buy any cds this christmas pass on and unite"

Looks good, and the full text reads:

The recording industry association of america (riaa) is way out of control. They sue 12 year old girls who download tv-show theme music. Yet they do nothing to provide what we all want most - flexible, inexpensive and user friendly music downloads. I say if they want to hurt the music lovers, let’s hurt them back. Don’t buy any cds from the major record labels this christmas. Perhaps then they will listen to our demands.

Pass this email on to everyone in your email address book. Let’s work together to get them to see some sense. Check out www.flyingtoaster.com to see how far we get.

- If you don't pass this on, you'll have 13 months of bad luck. This starts with a call from the riaa tomorrow asking for $150,000 for each song you've ever recorded from a friend.

- If you pass this on to between 1 and 10 friends, you'll be just fine. Unfortunately you will have to wait 4 years before you can legally get a copy of that out of print song your grandmother wants you to find for her.

- If you pass this on to everyone you know, you'll have 7 years of good luck. You'll also get a web site, where you can find every song ever recorded. You can download a free radio-quality copy. If you want a hi-fi quality copy, it'll only cost you 79c. All to play on whatever device you want. Rock-n-roll!

Paul - he's not one of the 261 - told us he decided on a chain letter, "mainly because I think the way the riaa is acting isn't in either the music lovers or their best interests. I find the fact that they won't / can't come up with a viable internet solution to providing music incredible. I do think however we can bring pressure to bear on them to provide a sensible solution.

"I guess I receive lots of chain mail, a lot of which seems inane. Although I see anti-riaa activities on the web, I'm not sure that they are that mainstream, and I guess was hoping that a successful mainstream chain-mail might take off. The news is filled with riaa stories at present, so was hoping that the less activist minded might actually forward the email."

And the message in the email is, think Tracey and Paul, the thing the RIAA and its owners truly fear - "that we stop buying their cds."

Paul goes on, "I tried to make it the sort of action that could be reasonable, and am guessing that a lot of cds are sold at Christmas time. I was hoping this would be a relatively easy to organize a mass action that would potentially bring the riaa out of their current anti-internet position. I know sooner of later we'll have a sensible solution, but I don't want to wait 20 years (as was the case for them to accept radio) before we do."

Check out the chainmail site (http://www.flyingtoaster.com/").

Jingle bells, jingle bells ....

chain letter? nahhhh
a virus to infest everyone's computers with info on how the RIAA is sneaking into bed with them when they aren't looking? yeah....

i'd send it....

you get bad luck when you buy any RIAA products

I havent recieved this yet, but maybe I'll just copy it and send it out... *whistles*

actually, i doubt that this might work out!
chain letters usually stop in my mailbox, because i know that they are annoying to a lot of ppl ...it's the massive amount of abusive chainletters & scam out there which spoiles even such good intentions

That's MY Christmas card to em!!!!
Go

A good idea... but the chain email needs a line added to it saying not to download any RIAA material, even if it's free.

Maybe a warning line in the title - "Please read: Anti-RIAA Letter" or something like that?

Also, people, when you forward this, PLEASE remove the "Fwd:" from the title line and all the Message Info such as "Forwarded Message from blah(a)blah.com; To: blah2(a)blah.com, etc....." When people see the "Fwd:" many usually delete it immediately. And nobody wants to have to read through all the info on who this went to LAST time, and all that other junk. Just get it out of the way for them, it's the nice thing to do. I've made it a personal habit myself.

Howzabout a short .wav file of jail doors banging.
caption: BE A FUTURE CRIMINAL. USE RIAA PRODUCTS.

Heeeeyy.. waitaminute!! That would make a good xmas card to send to people!

Har har, jazz. The only future criminals I see are Cary-Sue and his "sue 'em all" band. Or so we hope.

lol I haven't bought a CD in about 5 years and I don't think I'm about to start this X-mas!!

Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!
JINGLE ALL THE WAY!!!!!
It’s DEEDS OR EQUITY OF OUR HOMES ,
They (RIAA) want to TAKE AWAY!
HEY! Surfing Christmas Day
CHOOSING SONGS to play,
IT SURE WON’T BE THE ONES
THAT SUPPORT TERRORISM OR
PUSH PORNO ON THE CHILDREN OF THE USA!!!!
GO
:Viking:

why don't we all chip in and get Cary Sue a piece of coal

Heh, was that pun intended, compmore?

Now, on topic, it looks like a chain mail would be fairly effective. I know many people who have been scared to death by those "hotmail is closing" ones, etc.
But whether or not people would remember this when they are immediately brainwashed by A2 posters in record stores is another thing. Maybe we should go round posting posters and this letter on record store doors.

Christmas is the season of sharing.

Heh. Nice one George : )

How about if you buy an RIAA product you'll be bent over the barrell and pounded a hard one in the rear??? oh wait, the RIAA already had done that to me about 1000 times before P2P.!

Here's an idea... for Christmas, we can all go to our local libraries, download our favorite songs, and then email them to the RIAA! Let's give back to the community. Maybe we can sue them for downloading the files!

Cary-Sue Cary-Sue
Suing All The Way
And he wonders why we don't like
The r-i double A! Hey!

The People have had enough
Of the riaa's stuff
And they have stopped buying their
overpriced crap!

Hey!

Cary-Sue Cary-Sue
Look out Cary-Sue
When people stop buying your music junk
You won't have a job! Hey!

Yes Beansprout. that pun was intended. Bob Cratchet wasn't even allowed that from Scrooge. I was being generous

Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh what fun is to be in the RIAA today

Hey!

People say we're evil,
But we say, What the Hey!
The record labels pay our BILLLLLLLLs
So we're laughing all the way

Hey!

GREAT idea!
Some chain letters were great; remember the Tantra Totem? It was amazing set of good advices, I have its contents still deep in my memory ... This one may be the next. Yep, I agree to distribute it ... Brand new way of fightin' riaa ...
Cheerz!
Critto

I love the holiday spirit.

And I bet you'll love it even more when Cary-Sue becomes the new Santa at Palookaville Mall after the RIAA collapses.

Why not send coal to Cary-Sue? It could have a nice card with it. "Dear Cary, you've been a bad boy this year."

why not send cary sue a grinch doll with a mp3 recording of "you're a mean one mr. grinch".(LOL) :-}

Speaking of Santa, if the current copyright laws existed at the beginning of the 20th century, there would be a royalty paid every time Santa Claus appeared on an ornament.

And the government would still be paying rights for Uncle Sam.

For Sherman, the only fitting present is deer turds. A turnabout for all the crap we've seen spewed from him.