March is Boycott RIAA month.

[Royal]

Little backstory before I get on with the main point.

I am an advid soundtrack collector. I'm not hardcore, but whenever the opportunity to buy OSTs are there, I go for it. One day, I let my little sis borrow some of my music to listen to. Not all were OST, but most were. i had lent her a total of five cds. When it was time to return them, she was crying. When I asked her why, she told me most of my cds were ruined by the school computer. All but two survived. I told it was ok, she didn't know what was going to happen. I later on bought duplicates of the music that I lost. The OSTs for Queen of The Damned and Oh Brother Where Art Thou and one of Kylie Minogue. Couple months later, I decide to play some music while I clean my room. I popped in my QotD cd in my multi purpose DVD player and hit play.

I got nothing.

Thinking that they were protecting it from playing on my DVD player, I grabbed my Cd player.

Still nothing.

I tried everything that played disc technology and I came up empty. i later found out the cds that "got erased" are known as corrupted cds. CDs that are given copy protection only to wipe the cd clean if you play it on anything but a home or portable cd player.

What does this have to do with boycotting the RIAA.

They are still using the practice of "copy protection" and are restricting the use of the cd to almost totalitarian levels. millions of cds are out there that are defective and we are still paying for them.

There is also the issue of DRM (disc rights management). DRM allows selective play on mp3 players and disallowing on others. iTunes is the most notorious of DRM. Any music you buy on iTunes can only be listened to on iPods and no other mp3 player.

Even is worse is that the royalties for these MP3s never go to the musicians.

I say we put a stop to it.

During the whole month of March, a boycott will be happening against any and all RIAA affiliated companies. No one with buy music wholesale from them. A legal, peacable protest that includes the buying of used cds, buying of music from independant, local or international labels, listening to podcasts or internet radio (http://www.last.fm/listen/group/CBR%20Radio) *cheap pop*, if you have the money, take in a concert of your favorite musician or band and by as much mersh or if you can't do any of the mentioned acts, write a letter to your congressman and tell him of your displeasure over the criminal acts of which the RIAA is involved.

More information here:

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/

[Drew Van T.]

DRM is not going to last long; it won't take much to put a bullet into it. Even Steve Jobs thinks it's a stupid and ineffective way to "protect" digital media.

It's a bear claw trapping consumers and preventing fair use. I go to considerable lengths to avoid purchasing anything that's been tainted with DRM or copy protection.

[StoneGold]

DRM is not going to last long; it won't take much to put a bullet into it. Even Steve Jobs thinks it's a stupid and ineffective way to "protect" digital media.


Yeah, but he's only saying that in hopes that Europe won't outlaw iTunes.

[jessecuster3]

Forget a boycott, actually write a letter to your Congressmen.

This issue is actually really relevant as well: https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?JServSessionIdr001=pnh5oxe8l1.app13b&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=271

[Shellhead]

Maybe we wouldn't have gotten this obnoxious copy protection on the disks if we had celebrated a Boycott Stealing Music month starting several years ago.

[Ray R.]

I'm a big believer in fair use. Count me in.

[Royal]

Maybe we wouldn't have gotten this obnoxious copy protection on the disks if we had celebrated a Boycott Stealing Music month starting several years ago.

I'm not one for music piracy, but creating code that stiffle or cherry picks whose players can or can not play music is wrong. That's punishment by economic stratification. I should be able to play music on any disc reading device as well as be able to "mix tape" tracks from my collection onto a disc for personal enjoyment.

I should also have the right to demand that the proper monies that is given in purchase of the cd got directly to the artist and not to the pockets of the RIAA-Gumi.

There will be no pirating in this boycott. Just fair and legal commerce between buyers and independant labels and used cd stores.

[Serik]

There are ways around iTunes' stupid copy protection (Google is your friend). It's just annoying that I have to resort to such measures.

I don't buy much music anyway, so this boycott should be easy enough.

[Paul McEnery]

I'm all for this. I'd like to see the RIAA shut down. And, for that matter, every major label.

At this point, I won't even buy CDs any more, and only use the service emusic.com, which mostly services independent labels.

Mind, I bet the RIAA is getting money out of that too, somehow. And since it's a subscription service, there's not much I can do about that, unfortunately.

[Shellhead]

I'm not one for music piracy, but creating code that stiffle or cherry picks whose players can or can not play music is wrong. That's punishment by economic stratification. I should be able to play music on any disc reading device as well as be able to "mix tape" tracks from my collection onto a disc for personal enjoyment.

I should also have the right to demand that the proper monies that is given in purchase of the cd got directly to the artist and not to the pockets of the RIAA-Gumi.

There will be no pirating in this boycott. Just fair and legal commerce between buyers and independant labels and used cd stores.

Sounds fair. Count me in.

[Matt Algren]

I don't know if anybody here heard about it, but Dreamhost started their Files Forever (http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/10/03/itunes-music-sore/) program a few months ago. Haven't heard how it's going, but every little bit counts.
What is it?

It’s a new service (during the beta only open to DreamHost Customers) that allows you to sell your own digital files, a la iTMS.. but with a few key differences:

# No DRM is allowed.. period!
# Once you upload your file to sell, you pay a tiny one-time storage fee, and we serve it FOREVER at a nice, permanent, URL.
# Anybody who buys a file somebody offers via Files Forever get an online backup of it included.. that is, they may re-download the file as many times as they want, FOREVER!
# Any file you buy from Files Forever you can also “loan” to your friends via the service! They are then allowed to download the file as much as they want until you ask for it “back.” (This is awesome, trust me.)
# We handle all the payment processing / shopping cart stuff, and take just 5% + 50c for credit card fees. (We combine purchases to minimize these costs too.)
# You can even offer an “affiliate cut” for people who re-sell your files!
http://blog.dreamhost.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/tied-cyan.gif

[jessecuster3]

I'm a big believer in fair use. Count me in.

Ray check my link above, its all about the Fair Use Act.

[Royal]

I'm all for this. I'd like to see the RIAA shut down. And, for that matter, every major label.

At this point, I won't even buy CDs any more, and only use the service emusic.com, which mostly services independent labels.

Mind, I bet the RIAA is getting money out of that too, somehow. And since it's a subscription service, there's not much I can do about that, unfortunately.

The RIAA members list (http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp)

That should help you keep track on who's under RIAA banner.

[Ray R.]

Ray check my link above, its all about the Fair Use Act.

I see Rep. Boucher is from Virginia. Good. I also see they're moving to legislate around the S. Ct. Grokster decision. Also good.

"Supporters of the FAIR USE Act include the Consumer Electronics Association, the American Library Association, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, the Special Libraries Association, the Home Recording Rights Coalition, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, and other organizations representing the public interest and the consumers of digital media."

I'm usually skeptical, but that appears to be a good lineup of supporters.

[jessecuster3]

I see Rep. Boucher is from Virginia. Good. I also see they're moving to legislate around the S. Ct. Grokster decision. Also good.

"Supporters of the FAIR USE Act include the Consumer Electronics Association, the American Library Association, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, the Special Libraries Association, the Home Recording Rights Coalition, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, and other organizations representing the public interest and the consumers of digital media."

I'm usually skeptical, but that appears to be a good lineup of supporters.

The EFF is the proverbial shiznit. They don;t mess around and are basically the ACLU for technology issues. I have been a member and followed their action plans for going on 3 years now.

[J. Robb]

Yep, I used to be of the opinion that if an album is good, I'll go out and pay for it. Once I started having trouble playing or ripping CDs I bought, I quit buying them altogether.

Now I just consider music as advertising for a band's live show. If I like your stuff, I'll buy a ticket when you come to town.

[Jeff Brady]

At this point, I won't even buy CDs any more, and only use the service emusic.com, which mostly services independent labels.

eMusic is great. Absolutely no DRM. I've been using them for almost two years.

[Sanagi]

eMusic is the best online music store, easily.

Hopefully the major labels will figure out before too long that DRM encourages piracy.

[Spike-X]

Maybe we wouldn't have gotten this obnoxious copy protection on the disks if we had celebrated a Boycott Stealing Music month starting several years ago.

Name me one copy protected CD that's not been made available for download on one BitTorrent site or another.

Copy protection does nothing to stop piracy. All it does is punish the consumer for doing the right thing and actually paying for a legitimate copy of a CD.

[Alex]

Name me one copy protected CD that's not been made available for download on one BitTorrent site or another.

Copy protection does nothing to stop piracy. All it does is punish the consumer for doing the right thing and actually paying for a legitimate copy of a CD.

And those of us who don't care about illegaly downloading music have to spend up too 3 minutes longer finding the cd for download.
It's a travesty, and i want those minutes back!

[Sabrina_Fried]

Little backstory before I get on with the main point.

I am an advid soundtrack collector. I'm not hardcore, but whenever the opportunity to buy OSTs are there, I go for it. One day, I let my little sis borrow some of my music to listen to. Not all were OST, but most were. i had lent her a total of five cds. When it was time to return them, she was crying. When I asked her why, she told me most of my cds were ruined by the school computer. All but two survived. I told it was ok, she didn't know what was going to happen. I later on bought duplicates of the music that I lost. The OSTs for Queen of The Damned and Oh Brother Where Art Thou and one of Kylie Minogue. Couple months later, I decide to play some music while I clean my room. I popped in my QotD cd in my multi purpose DVD player and hit play.

I got nothing.

Thinking that they were protecting it from playing on my DVD player, I grabbed my Cd player.

Still nothing.

I tried everything that played disc technology and I came up empty. i later found out the cds that "got erased" are known as corrupted cds. CDs that are given copy protection only to wipe the cd clean if you play it on anything but a home or portable cd player.

What does this have to do with boycotting the RIAA.

They are still using the practice of "copy protection" and are restricting the use of the cd to almost totalitarian levels. millions of cds are out there that are defective and we are still paying for them.

There is also the issue of DRM (disc rights management). DRM allows selective play on mp3 players and disallowing on others. iTunes is the most notorious of DRM. Any music you buy on iTunes can only be listened to on iPods and no other mp3 player.

Even is worse is that the royalties for these MP3s never go to the musicians.

I say we put a stop to it.

During the whole month of March, a boycott will be happening against any and all RIAA affiliated companies. No one with buy music wholesale from them. A legal, peacable protest that includes the buying of used cds, buying of music from independant, local or international labels, listening to podcasts or internet radio (http://www.last.fm/listen/group/CBR%20Radio) *cheap pop*, if you have the money, take in a concert of your favorite musician or band and by as much mersh or if you can't do any of the mentioned acts, write a letter to your congressman and tell him of your displeasure over the criminal acts of which the RIAA is involved.

More information here:

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/

As a fellow soundtrack fan (mostly instrumental soundtracks though), I didn't even know it was possible for the copy protection to "wipe" a CD like that! But then I play most of my CDs "quarantined" on a CD walkman with studio headphones or a CD stereo, so they never come into contact with any lasers that have the ability to write to, or zap, a disc. For me though, the issue was always that I didn't want all those proprietary player softwares or other funny things that they include on CDs these days clogging up my hard drive.

I find lately that I am buying fewer soundtracks though. The instrumental ones all sound the same these days. It seems to me that the harder the companies work to restrict distribution by using DRM or other copy-protection technologies, the less resources they devote to making the product they are "protecting" worth buying. Maybe instead of boycotting the RIAA for one month, which won't produce the result we all want, we should procott them instead: Buy only the music worth purchasing on CD, when it is presented in a DRM-free format that allows you to exercise your fair use (fair dealing here in Canada) rights. If they don't supply the music in a format you can accept, then don't consume it at all. Legally or illegally. The downside to illegal downloading, is that it still creates word of mouth advertising about something because people still DO listen to it. If an album was consigned to obscurity because no one listened to it it wouldn't just affect the sales of that one album, it would affect the financial stability of the entire business model that produced that album.

Word of mouth is to CDs what ads are to magazines. It is much more valuable to the company than the CD itself.

Sabrina

[Royal]

I find lately that I am buying fewer soundtracks though. The instrumental ones all sound the same these days. It seems to me that the harder the companies work to restrict distribution by using DRM or other copy-protection technologies, the less resources they devote to making the product they are "protecting" worth buying. Maybe instead of boycotting the RIAA for one month, which won't produce the result we all want, we should procott them instead: Buy only the music worth purchasing on CD, when it is presented in a DRM-free format that allows you to exercise your fair use (fair dealing here in Canada) rights. If they don't supply the music in a format you can accept, then don't consume it at all. Legally or illegally. The downside to illegal downloading, is that it still creates word of mouth advertising about something because people still DO listen to it. If an album was consigned to obscurity because no one listened to it it wouldn't just affect the sales of that one album, it would affect the financial stability of the entire business model that produced that album.

Word of mouth is to CDs what ads are to magazines. It is much more valuable to the company than the CD itself.

Sabrina

But then how can we garentee that the money we give to the "right" cds go to the artists instead of building the next defense system and/or the next wave of lidigation against college students.

This boycott is more then about fair use. It's about trying to give back to the creator then filling the pockets of the distributor. Give them at least a bit of bread to live off of instead of having them sweat in debt while hoping to god their next album will be radio friendly enough to sell.

A friend of mine recently lost his house to fire. He lost everything. His gold records, concert posters, everything that got him his 15 mins. Everything that made him a name... went up in smoke. His house was insured by all these items weren't. He now has to resort to ebay to try to buy back as much of his legacy as he can. If he had a better recording deal and if record companies didn't successfully extend copyright ownership for themselves, not only would everything be insured, he'd have a proper storage facility for his items and nothing like this would have happened.

I'm not looking for real drastic changes, but if this can affect at least 1% of the profit RIAA makes off the heads of others, then I'll be happy.

[Royal]

Another Reason To Boycott. (http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/030207/index.shtml)

[Punchy]

Finally, a sensible thread about RIAA without having to hear ignorant comments like "it's cheap to make a CD" and bragging about stealing music.

I hate copy protection, it's too bad it's come to that.

[ragnarok_2012]

Rifftrax (the MST3K guys) sell their mp3 tracks free of DRM, and I love them for it.

http://rifftrax.com/

[Punchy]

I buy 5-10 CDs a month and have had copywright protection issues with only one CD. I can't believe its such a problem.

[Infra-Man]

The RIAA members list (http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp)

That should help you keep track on who's under RIAA banner.

Count me in. Buying used from those labels on that list won't be hard. I think I usually do that anyways regardless of the boycott.

[Spike-X]

Finally, a sensible thread about RIAA without having to hear ignorant comments like "it's cheap to make a CD"...

Yeah, that one's always bugged the hell out of me. Sure, it's pretty cheap to manufacture the actual disc, but how the hell do people think the music gets on there in the first place? Do they think that recording studios/equipment are free or something?

[Sanagi]

http://craphound.com/images/awesomepiracyposter.jpg

[Drew Van T.]

Yeah, but he's only saying that in hopes that Europe won't outlaw iTunes.

Yes, I'm sure that's part of it.

Steve Jobs is also right, though, when he says that the companies pushing the RIAA are predominantly European-based (many big music labels, etc.)

The sad irony is that the RIAA is something pushed by (semi-)European companies but which concentrates the majority of its efforts on the American market. For instance, they have started far more lawsuits on American soil than on European soil. Their reasons for this, I would guess, are 1) they think the American market is generally more profitable and they are probably right, 2) they know that they are less likely to encounter political resistance in the US.

[Fish Sauce]

I buy a fair number of CDs, and generally illegal downloading is only there for me to trial. This is my only option as there are no legal options that I am aware of in this country (iTunes isn't available, etc).

If I like it, I buy the album.

I've only ever had one problem with a CD, that was a year and a bit ago with a John Butler Trio album. It buggered up when I tried to put it into iTunes and hasn't worked properly since. That problem would be nothing to do with the RIAA, but if they're causing more problems of that nature then screw them.

My main problem with the recording industry is the miniscule amount that goes to the people who make the music I'm paying for. It's bullshit.

[Fish Sauce]

And unfortunately there's no local music scene here that I find to be worth supporting. :s