Jon:
Just a humble request here (I know you’re busy):
Could you maybe “encourage” our pal “Sam” to actually – oh, I dunno — participate in the discussion instead of merely taking pot-shots at me, regurgitating RIAA press releases, and generally being a complete bore? I mean, I’ve already gotten the guy to admit that if the RIAA hadn’t screwed with copyright terms, most of the stuff wouldn’t be considered “property” at all (and thus, wouldn’t be stolen), so he really has no actual “argument” to present. I also “get” the fact that his posts have degenerated into nearly-complete idiocy (it’s kinda gratifying to see, actually — he won’t bother with “useless history lessons” or suchlike, so he tries to take pot-shots at me instead).

But, could you maybe at least TRY to get the guy to actually answer my questions?
If not, that’s kewl – I’m just getting really tired of beating this particular “dead horse” — or might one say, RIAA TROJAN Horse, and was wondering if maybe somebody ELSE might wanna take a crack at him:

Freethinker? Your posts are great — you wanna play with “Sam” for awhile?
(How many times do Y’all expect me to say “Answer the question”?)

I’d like to second Reader’s Write “The willingness to publically admit you were wrong is uncommon indeed. Thanks for doing so, regardless of what your opinions are or were.”

I meant to put something similar in my post to you, but got carried away with RIAA rep!

Well yes, they would, if one doesn’t get the gag… however, there were lots of hints in them that gave away the parody/spoof. For a start, if you think about it, they were often a little *too* outrageous to be worded like that by a real shill, weren’t they?! And ultimately, why would a real RIAA rep actually post publically like this in the first place? That’s the dead giveaway…

“The reason I stopped RIAA Rep wasn’t because he was winding people up — that’s fine by me – it was because he wasn’t.”

Actually he did wind them up many times, the flames proved that – but you didn’t seem happy about it. You told me that you didn’t like the way it took the conversation away from the article, which you weren’t happy about, which I guess is your right. It did sort of turn into a flame-fest at times, with poor little corrupt RIAA rep right smack in the middle of it! lol

As I’ve mentioned before, there was also a serious side to those posts, buried in all that black humour – to really emphasize just what total c*nts the RIAA/MPAA and Big Media as a whole, are. From my point of view, you do a helluva fine job exposing the corruption that’s going on, with your news articles. RIAA rep was just the icing on the cake: letting people reading your news posts who have never had contact with Big Media, really *feel* what they’re like, through parody. Judging by the responses RIAA rep got, I think he succeeded quite well there IMHO. lol

Sorry.

Cheers!

Quite possibly.

I don’t know if you ever saw the black comedy posts by the ironically obnoxious “RIAA rep” and some of his friends, such as Musico on here some time ago? In his heydey he’d twist every article into a pro RIAA stance and generally just really wind his hapless readers up, always pressing the most anti-consumer, pro Big Media, pro DRM (oh, especially the DRM!) arguments you ever saw. Indeed, he often called the trainwreck lawsuit campaign a great success and insisted on its global expansion; not unlike what’s really happening now, unfortunately.

Liberally threatening every poster who dared reply with a lawsuit, was one of his favourite catchphrases – and they bit! Not even Jon was spared. (grin)

Sadly, RIAA rep and his friends were “discouraged” from contributing by Jon here, who wasn’t best pleased with their antics… shame.

I certainly remember how “trolly” many of your posts sounded and I had a go at you as much as the next guy here. I guess you really believed that stuff, then. I guess you were also wanting some answers to the questions and points you were making and this forum (and Jon!) helped answer them.

Anyway, I think it’s really awesome to see you come around to our side and see Big Media for the corrupt scum that they are. I know other artists are too, as often shown on p2pnet and http://www.techdirt.com The tide will only ever swing more greatly to our side as time goes on.

Will you still be calling yourself Sam I Am?