Cheesy RIAA ‘Thank you’
p2pnet.net news:- Extortion is, says dictionary.com, the crime of obtaining money or something else of value by the abuse of one’s office or authority, and/or, oppressive or illegal exaction.
By any definition the actions of Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big 4 music cartel, in their efforts to get money from people they accuse of improperly sharing music with each other online, are extortionate.
The Big 4 are already infamous for their settlement scheme. But they recently took it three major steps further by trying to force ISPs to act as industry copyright cops, denouncing their own customers; ramping up their attacks against American schools; and, sending ‘pay us or else‘ letters to individual students, using a nasty web site as their contact point.
Now Boing Boing links to a screenshot (right) of the last ‘Receipt’ step of settling a lawsuit from the RIAA student self-incrimination site just mentioned.
It’s from someone who says, “Sorry for not listing my name but because I don’t want the RIAA finding out it was me I didn’t want to use my info when submitting this link. I also put this on an anonymous blog of mine for the same reason.”
It goes on, “Of note the fact that they hope for future ‘business’. This hurts almost more than having to pay the ~$3500 for a ‘reduced price’ settlement. And as a college student paying that out of pocket it is not an easy thing to say.”
Also See:
extortionate – Us, Them, p2p and file sharing, December 9, 2006
settlement scheme – File sharing, p2p criminals, March 12, 2005
copyright cops – RIAA ‘extortion’ letter to ISPs, February 13, 2007
ramping up – Ohio U No 1 on RIAA p2p chart, February 23, 2007
pay us or else – RIAA’s student extortion letter, March 3, 2007
nasty web site – RIAA college settlement plan, February 28, 2007
Boing Boing – RIAA student extortion site “looks forward to future business”, March 4, 2007
anonymous blog – RIAA Likes Piracy, March 4, 2007
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
