p2pnet news view | RIAA News:- “It’s been really hard to have to be the one to tell them they are facing this lawsuit,” University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire associate dean of student development Jodi Thesing-Ritter said recently.

“Some students have had to drop out of school in order to pay for their legal fees.”

Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG, “hate anything which even looks remotely like competition,” p2pnet posted recently.

“They hate independents and independence.

“They hate anything which interferes with what they see as their God-given right to control how, and by whom, music is distributed online.

“They even hate the people who keep them in drugs and booze and who pay their bills.”

But the Big 4 aren’t alone. Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney’s MPAA started late, but it’s now running full speed ahead,  going after students and anyone else who stand in its way.

The same can be said of the BSA, which acts for the the likes of Microsoft, Adobe, and so on.

Spurious ’settlement’ fees

When the RIAA started out trying to terrorise Americans into buying only korporate ‘product,’ they were even targeting young children.

They still do, but in the last couple of years they’ve been focusing most of their attention on US students, blackmailing them into paying spurious ’settlement’ fees, and coercing teachers  into acting as Big 4 copyright enforcers.

“The RIAA intimidates and steamrolls accused infringers into settling before they have their day in court and before the courts can weigh the merits of their defenses,” said Harvard professor Charles Nesson recently.

He and some of his students have filed a counterclaim on behalf of RIAA victim Joel Tenenbaum.

He also said »»»

The inherent dangers in allowing a single interest group, desperate in the face of technological change, led by a voracious, cohesive, extraordinarily well-funded and deeply experienced legal team doing battle with pro se defendants, armed with a statute written by them and lobbied and quietly passed through a compliant congress, to march defendants through the federal courts to make examples out of them should lead this Court to say ’stop’.

The quote in the intro comes in UW-Eau Claire student newspaper The Spectator.

People set upon by the MPAA and BSA are in exactly the same position.

I’m an honest person

The RIAA, MPAA, BSA, FACT, IFPI, and all the other korporate alphabet organisations, are evil, in every sense of the word, and the people who knowingly and willingly keep the wheels turning are personally responsible for causing daily misery to thousands of innocent people not across America, but around the world.

“We’re only following orders,” doesn’t wash.

Meanwhile, Christmas is a-comin’. And you know what not to buy for prezzies.

Says a post in The Inquisitr, the US election has shown us, “if people believe in something strong enough,” they, “can make a change”.

It continues »»»

They force things like draconian digital rights management on entertainment and software producers because they don’t want to lose a single penny. Of course it isn’t just the trade organizations like the RIAA, MPAA or their software counterparts. It is also the corporations producing the mass quantity; much of which is pure dribble to begin with, that issue the marching orders or end up paying for the lawyers suing people into the poor house.

Why is it that the whole concept of the first sale doctine goes out the window the moment we move to digital goods. Just because you spend your hard earned money to buy something online in a digital format shouldn’t mean that it isn’t yours. That however is just what all these entertainment and software companies are saying. You can go to a bookstore, record store or gaming shop and plop down your money and that tangible item is yours. You could go the very next day and trade it in on something else and the store can sell it as used goods. You can sell it to your best buddy and no-one can tell you any different. Why – because you owned it – period.

In Canada when we go to buy any black media to copy onto (cassette tape, video tape, cd, dvd) there is a tax built into the price; otherwise known as The Private Copying Tax, that lets us make as many copies of something we want for our own private use. This has pissed off the folks like the RIAA and MPAA because it makes it next to impossible to enforce their perverse version of copyright law through our government. This is why organizations like the RIAA and the MPAA have been trying very hard to influence our Canadian government to change the laws – copyright laws that are in fact fairer to the content producers that anything the U.S. has.

It’s bad enough that organizations like this have gained the control they have in the US but this misappropriation of rights is now spreading beyond the U.S. borders and I’m sorry but it’s got to stop. As long as I am not breaking the law buy trying to profit from selling copies of things under sane copyright laws then why am I; and you being, treated like criminals. Why do we let this bullshit continue?

I’m an honest person as well I am sure that you are. Sure we’ve all probably downloaded something we shouldn’t have at some point in our lives but to continue to let these bastards extert the kind of power they have over our lives is just plain insane. Especially when you consider that we have the power to change this. A power so incredibly displayed by the Obama campaign – the power of the people. Not the power brokers, not the lobbiests but the power of the people to say enough is enough. They need to be told that we are not criminals and that both the entertainment corporations along with their trade organizations have no right to treat us as such.

The fact is that once we pay our money for a product; physical or digital, it is ours plain and simple. However until we tell these soulless greedy pricks to back off we get what we deserve. They aren’t going to stop doing everything they can to maximize every red cents they can regardless of our rights as consumers – as people. We are to blame for the situation we are in now and only we can change it. The companies won’t, the politicians won’t – we have to. But we’re too busy running to iTunes or other online entertainment content stores to get the latest and greatest even if we do whine and moan about things like DRM.

‘I doubt it will ever happen’

“Don’t bother crowing about Web 2.0 and social media and how it is changing things because right now those ideals don’t mean squat to the corporations and trade organizations,” says The Inquisitr, adding:

“Just think though for a second if for even 6 months is not a thing was bought from iTunes, not a single game was downloaded or not a single pirated version made the rounds. How much of a change do you think could happen when all these companies that need our money in order to keep running suddenly are faced with this kind of action.

“It could be done but honestly I doubt it will ever happen no matter what the power of the people showed during the election. I could be wrong but I don’t think so – what do you think?”

I think things are happening.

Just about the only numbers we don’t see, and which aren’t reported by the lamescream media, are the ones applying to the effects ‘we’re not buying any more of your stuff’  and actual boycotts are having.

Because it’s a cast-iron certainty that people aren’t buying korporate krap in the way they used to, thanks to the RIAA, et al.

The labels, Hollywood and the software companies have all kinds of reasons and excuses for the plummeting popularity of them and their ‘product’.

But significantly, we never see estimates of how much of these steep declines can be attributed to angry people who, thanks to P2P People Power and the Net, have reverted from mindless consumers  to customers who can, and do, exercise free choice.

And IMHO,  it’s making a huge difference —- even if the media and korporations won’t admit it.

After Christmas comes the New Year.

You know what you’ll resolve not to buy in 2009, and nor do you need to.

There’s plenty of innovative open source software around, and lots of great tunes from independent musicians.

And if you decide to taste-test korporate product on the P2P networks ………..

Jon Newton – p2pnet

News 1130 – , November , 2008

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 at 11:59 am and is filed under MPAA News, RIAA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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