US students undaunted by RIAA
p2pnet.net news:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has spent, and is still spending, millions of dollars on spurious file sharing lawsuits, claiming the outlay is helping to balance its books by ‘encouraging’ people to buy Big 4 ‘product’.
The RIAA has so far sent subpoenas to some 20,000 people, including young children, using the mainstream media to spin the documents as actual, and successful, ‘prosecutions’.
Currently in the public eye, thanks to a massive PR blitz, are American students.
“Years ago,” they were, “our best customers,” lamented RIAA president Cary Sherman, recently. “Now they’re among our worst customers.”
Years ago, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG weren’t trying to sue students into buying low-quality, high-priced downloads.
Now, 67% of students on college campuses, “are still not concerned with the with their illegal downloading habits,” says the The Massachusetts Daily Collegian, quoting a SurveyU study.
“If you ask me, 98 percent of people are doing it – it’s not just a group of bad kids,” the story has co-founder Dan Coates saying. “It’s like we have to punish an entire generation. It’s small things, like the subtle change in words, from file-sharing to piracy. Those two phrases conjure up very different images. What I’m saying is that you’d have to do a lot of talking to convince me that these kids are profiting off these files.”
Conducted during the weekend of March 24, the survey polled 500 students nation wide on how many songs they own, and how they received them; whether or not they side with musicians and the music industry, the government or other college students; and, how informed they are on legal issues surrounding digital rights.
“The results showed that 53 percent of college students in the country are actually aware of the issue, but only 35 percent of that group are familiarized with their legal rights,” says the story. And, “When respondents were asked to guesstimate the amount of music purchased in their collection versus the amount that was not purchased SurveyU found that only 57 percent of people’s total libraries had been bought,” it goes on.
“Clearly there’s a sense among college students that once a song has been digitized, it’s free,” it has Coates stating. “This is a generation that has grown up around digital media and is living on the fault lines of a digital rights issue.”
He also makes a distinction between the Baby Boomer and Millennial generations, the latter comprising people born between 1982 and 2002.
“Boomers started out seeking to redefine society by focusing on the injustices of their time: race relations, the Vietnam War and the role of women in society,” Coates believes, adds The Massachusetts Daily Collegian.
“Two generations later, their children, the Millennial Generation, are seeking to redefine society as well, but this time the injustices they perceive are digital in nature. The irony is that the generation that sought societal change is now ‘the man,’ and they are defending digital rights with the same force that was used in the ’60s to thwart their own efforts.”
Also See:
best customers – Students ‘worst customers’: RIAA, March 23, 2007
The Massachusetts Daily Collegian – Survey: 67% of students don’t care about illegal downloading, April 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!
April 6th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
That picture above made me think of the movie line where Jack Nicholson told Tom Cruise “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!” in the movie “a few good men”.
I can see someone saying that to the RIAA/MPAA! LOL!
April 6th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
The picture I was referring to was RIAA:Anything but the truth.
April 7th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
“Clearly there’s a sense among college students that once a song has been digitized, it’s free,”
You mean it’s not? XD