Up until this point all of the discussion going on has only been just that, a discussion. We rant, rave, blog, and drag out the soap boxes every opportunity we have, but what direct action have any of us taken to prevent the actions of the RIAA to continue? Most, I would have to imagine, would say none.

Boycotting the sale of music is completely useless. The only entity you would be taking money away from are the stores whose shelves’ the product is on. The Company who produced the CD already received their money from the stores that paid for the right of re-sell for the CD. The stores are the ones who resell it, so your money is paying for the reimbursement of their business expense, not the CD itself.

If the store notices that music sales are down by say $5,000 a month, then the store manager either needs to buy $5,000 less of product a month, pay his employees $5,000 less a month, or charge $5,000 more a month to the customer to offset that loss. In other words, if the store does 80,000 sales a month, it can markup the average sale by $0.06 and still make the same amount of profit. In order for the boycott to be effective, the loss of that profit would need to be significant enough to change the amount of total purchasing power of the store, and not just for a single good. Boycott the sale of one good and you’ll probably just increase the price of another good, or even all of them.

The only effective measures one can take to curb the RIAA’s actions are directly through use of physical intervention, or indirectly through use of legal action. Unfortunately for most people affected by the suits of the RIAA, legal action cannot be taken and generally wind up settling to avoid further financial hardship. That leaves only direct physical confrontation, aside from lying down and allowing yourself to be trampled by an unjust and outright farce.

As a man of honor and integrity I could not allow myself to be a victim of circumstances such as these. I am not a wealthy man, and cannot take the legally advisable means of retaliation in arguing my innocence and having justice served in my favor by the use of legal council. I am not a man of moral confinement; I do not believe our actions are inherently good nor evil. I believe actions are independent of moral obligations and immune to circumstance. So if a person such as myself were to ever be tried for a crime they did not commit, anyone raising such allegations should be greatly concerned.

The taking of a life, viewed in the right circumstances is heroic, just, and demanded, in the wrong circumstance it is viewed as evil, detestable, and greatly protested. If a man is killing hundreds of people and you kill that one man, you are a hero, but only because everyone knew he was killing others, but if you killed that very same man and no one could determine a reason other than “just because”, a hero is the last thing anyone would be thinking. The same action occurred, a life was taken, and regardless of circumstance you either agree its acceptable or not. I agree taking a life is acceptable, but only for survival. Threaten my survival, and all life is forfeit.

When’s the last time any of you musos recived a cheque for radio or television airplay that hasn’t been the direct result of your management taking extreme measures to secure said payments? This has nothing to due with the artist’s ot the writer’s mechanical royalties. Those are held and controlled by the labels, not the RIAA.

Let’s keep destryoing there business and let do our best at it.

We don’t need parasites on our planet.

quite true, but probably not the best arguement :P

On topic: I LUVZ DIS LAWYER!

Please stfu yerself. ;D

While this will not instantly take root and convert judges from conservative technophobes biased towards the RIAA, to freetard ‘fuck the RIAA’ types, it -will- at least be read, and generate a subtle shift in mentality; from an unquestioning “Hey, if the company says they have proof that this person downloaded X, Y, and Z, and that it hurt their pocket books, it must be true”, to a more careful, nuanced “What weight does this ‘proof’ have, and if it’s true, what loss did the file sharing truly exact upon the RIAA’s coffers”.

“Mass criminal action has no defense.”

Mass lying has no real defense. The only defense you have, from the industry, is money. It is essentially corrupt, and your lying is corrupt.

To the rest:

I have a discussion board at

http://www.28chan.org/fs/

For general discussion on file-sharing.