April 24, 2005: Boycott week!
p2pnet.net News :- The entertainment industry is using its various alphabet enforcement organizations to try to terrorize ‘consumers’ into buying ‘product’.
But Emma over in Sweden has had it up to there and wants the last seven days in April, 2005, to be a boycott week that’ll show the entertainment industry just how much it stands to lose if its ex-, existing and potential customers decide they, too, had enough.
The multi-billion-dollar Big Seven movie studios and Big Four record label cartel say they’re being “devastated” by people sharing files on p2p networks. Files shared represent sales lost, they claim, and to protect their interests, must sue the file sharers.
They’ve never been able to prove or demonstrate that a shared music or movie file equals a lost sale.
The music cartel tried to sue customers into submission. But its legal war is an abject failure, as has been proven over and over again by a range of academic and commercial statistical studies and evaluations..
So far, it’s hammered more than 7,700 ordinary men and women and their children, using its RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) enforcement unit as the anvil.
The second ’A’ in RIAA stands for ‘America,’ and yet only one of its four owners, Warner Music Group, is American. The other companies suing US citizens are based in France (Universal Music Group), Japan and Germany (Sony BMG Music Entertainment) and Britain (the EMI Group).
And not one of the ‘file sharing’ cases has ever been heard in a civil court because the people being sued simply don’t have the resources to stand up to the Big Four with their tremendous political clout, limitless financial resources and endless legions of expert lawyers.
Instead, victims are forced to make private settlements, well out of the glare of public scrutiny.
And Big Music’s purpose has been served. It’s been able to criminalize file sharing and file sharers, and to give the entirely erroneous impression that it’s successfully prosecuted thousands of ‘criminals’ for the heinous crime of sharing music online.
The fact that most of the movie studio and record label problems would be radically diminished if they’d accept the reality that they’re operating in a digital universe and should be using p2p and p2p technologies not only stay afloat, but to prosper, is ignored.
In the meanwhile, the real criminals – the international counterfeiters and duplicators – grow rich.
Now the studios’ MPAA is (Motion Picture Association of America) is following the RIAA’s lead, choosing BitTorrent servers as the immediate targets.
But, “I got pissed off,” Emma emailed us. “Why not try to do something?
And why not? After all, the internet IS p2p – peer-to-peer.
Before the Net, the only way we could make our views known was to march in the streets, send letters to the editor, and so on. But this kind of protest didn’t achieve much, unless it was picked up by the media. And even then it didn’t last.
Today, however, WE are the media. And because of p2p – the Net, in other words – we completely by-pass the newspapers, magazine, radio and tv stations which used to control what we saw, read and heard.
Music and movies are only the tiny tip of the p2p iceberg, but they demonstrate that previously untouchable corporate entities with unlimited resources are now touchable.
Very.
That’s why they’re panicking.
Emma …
“I’m emma, admin on a couple of bittorent sites and completely into bittorrent,” Emma told us.
“As of late, the bittorrent sites has been biting the dust like flies. Mind you, not ONLY because of legal threats, some actually has quit working on their sites because they need to reclaim their lives and others are just waiting for this whole thing to blow over.
“Anyways, I got pissed off, and figures – Why not try to do something? Most of us are actually consumers, and it’s kinda sad that the powers-that-be doesn’t recognize that fact, so I wrote the letter, that is on the front page on P2P, and asked people on Filesoup.com if they thought we should do something instead of whinging about it.
“And well – they tended to agree with me, so here we are. First week – ideas flying, and there are loads of things that I need to do. Like authoring some sort of goals/agenda thing, and spread the word and catch people that might be interested from other P2P venues, like edonkey and different DC hubs and so on.
“So basically, it’s all been rather tentatively started up, but more an more people joining in, and all eager to help out.”
Emma’s P2PUnite web page has this to say.
“As of late the MPAA’s and RIAA’s of the world are claiming that we are robbing them of their rightly earned money and are trying to find ways to legally put and end to it,” says Emma on her new . “The scare tactics have been fruitful, it would seem as they keep getting settlements out of court and probably make a profit out of it.
“This campaign of theirs, of course, isn’t to target and eradicate filesharing as much as an attempt to control the market and where our money goes. Most of us feel that they should very well look into availability and affordable prices instead of claiming higher moral ground. The wealthiest nowadays decide what we shall listen to and watch, using staggering PR campaigns, and most releases are ‘format’ productions, where talent and creativity comes second only to business concept and money.”
Bill Evans was one of the first to suggest that boycotts might be the only way to halt Big Music in its tracks. He started the original, and seminal, Boycott-RIAA.com. Unfortunately, he and its new owners couldn’t agree he’s no longer associated with it.
However, his ideas were sound and Emma wants everyone who’s shared a file, “downloaded something from online or think that the prices are outrageous in general” to send a message.
But, “This is not to be confused as go pirate everything you can find as the production companies are common robbers,” she emphasises.
Rather, it’s a way, “to show that we are indeed supporting them already, so stop fighting us!”
“Spread the word everywhere you can think of,” she adds on her web page.
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See:-
immediate targets - Hollywood nails SuprNova, p2pnet, December 20, 2004
December 20th, 2004 at 11:02 pm
I think this is a good idea, or at least an idea to try show the world the truth about filesharers. We’re not criminals and our goal is not to damage entertainment industry. (And we absolutely not supporting terrorists with filesharing) We only like to have a proper, working, costumer-oriented entertainment industry.
I think an other try should be to create an (annual) filesharing day, when we stand out to the mainstream media and everyone and try to tell them the same. We must create our own ‘weasel’. By the activity of some lobby-group (mainly RIAA and MPAA) average people can have a very dark stereotype about us. We should try to break down it, becouse when people realize that there can be an other way (and every day more and more realize do), the entertainment industry will have to make a step, without the words ’sue’ or ‘threat’.
December 21st, 2004 at 7:37 am
While I’ve said for years that true boycotting is definitely a way to have an impact on the media industries – I have a feeling this form of expression will only be understood as an attack from people who are merely criminals and they will never pay it the attention it deserves….. the only thought they will give it is to bring it up in a board meeting where we ‘the p2p majority – whom are(were) their customers’ are going to be labeled as nothing more than thieves and this just yet another blatant attack to take down the entertainment industry.
Blah..!
All that said. I bought my last music cd a long long time ago – no plans on buying any within the near future….. but, I’ll tell you, artists whom (like the person who advertised, er um, told us about their wanting their music shared) understand our cause (to allow the old Betamax case to be where our copyright’s are based from instead of the DMCA/Patriot act crap) we p2p users should invest in them instead of the rat bastards of the industry who are suing our friends/brothers/kids/etc…..
In short:
Dear Mr and Mrs Musician and Movie Actor:
I love the value you give to us in your works but you need to understand that not all of us have your kind of bank accounts. To you, that steak dinner is trivial but for us we’re lucky to get Mac and Cheese. We’re not drinking name brand soda, or going to Fast Food restaurants every night – we’re mostly comprised of ‘average’ consumers…. We’re not out to destroy you but we’re also not going to ‘invest’ all our available money into your media products either.
I’ll give some examples here of what I mean. I ‘know of’ some people who frequently download media from the net – do they intend to harm the makers of said media? no.. in fact once they find something they really love they keep it aside (while normally deleting the crap that they’re glad they didn’t buy up front)… and in time, they occasionally go out and buy that media when its affordable (note: affordable is not $20 for a movie or music cd… the magic number for a dvd is closer to $9 and roughly $5 for a music cd).. and that’s including all the fancy cover art and crap you put on as ‘added value’….
I know the first thing out of the mouths of non-p2p users is normally that p2p users get what they deserve……that they bring it on themselves – but what if they, by watching or listening to that media they download, increase the number of sales they would have ultimately made – because if they had not listened or watched that media they would never have spent that hard-earned money on them, not even as a rental….. while that question is in line with the story here, it’s still the kinda thing I hear all the time.
As for the freedom in posting information on the net – it’s not so free – the people can post to a thousand sites and only have a few dozen people actually read it, while getting some reporter at the wall street journal to post an interview on a p2p user would more likely have a more profound effect…. good luck getting that printed, but point is the same.
I have high hopes that p2p will be freed from the crap the mpaa/riaa have put upon the various flavors it’s become… however, until someone stands trial and risks their lives being placed behind bars for the cause, we’re not going to get anywhere.
I call out to ANYONE sued by the onslaught who feel strongly about p2p and its survival to contact the EFF.org before signing away the waivers the media bastards get you to sign when accepting the settlement amounts. If you have the golden-case, you can set the precedent for all p2p defense…. If you’re case is doomed, please don’t goto trial because you again, will set a precedent, but if you’ve got a spitting chance, then fight the bastards…….please.
Ok, sorry, I rant now and then…. but we’re just spinning our wheels until there is legal changes instead of just a few hundred or thousand people holding back buying product a few days, only to go back to the store and buy the same media products they would have bought on those days they abstained anyway – it accomplishes nothing. If you’re going to help the cause in that way, do what I have done – vow to buy nothing EVER again until things change for the p2p betterment. anything less is half ass and you shouldn’t waste your time.
Just my $4.95.. lol
_-Jile-_
December 21st, 2004 at 3:00 pm
There are two problems with a boycott: First is that the “alphabet enforcement organizations” consider any loss to be due to P2P, so whether it is Walmart putting pressure on pricing or a boycott, they will claim to sleeping politicians that P2P is to blame.
If you do a boycott make sure that you tell everyone why you are doing it, and that includes letters to your elected representatives. If you don’t tell elected representatives then anything you do will just be used against you.
The other question is: why just a week? I started my boycott of the major labels and motion picture studies in 2000. See: http://metallica.flora.org/
We should not be just doing this for a week, but opting out of funding people who want to sue everyone. You should stop not only purchasing this music, but downloading/distributing it as well. Live your daily lives as if this were the future and independent musicians who authorize P2P advertising are the only musicians making money – purchase/download/distribute only those independents.
If you want to take on an education campaign even further, do as DownHillBattle.org are doing with their r RIAA Information Awareness Activism (RIAA) site.
http://www.downhillbattle.org/riaa/
Russell McOrmond – http://www.flora.ca/russell/
April 26th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
Boycott- ok!
But one week no TV, no radio?
Present to you, if you come home and if no newspaper, but would like to know what on the day in the world happened. What do you make? Exactly: You usually switch the television on. After the news you do not have to do anything in the evening and sit then comfortably before the television, watching a film. Or you switch the radio on instead of the television. Again the newest music to hear… But we all pay GEZ fees in Germany. And the transmitters pay GEMA fees. We cannot make so a boycott here in Germany. The transmitters would have large losses, if the spectator number goes back. We have enough people who has no work.
Should to become still more?
The boycott brings it in addition, not, if one refers it to CDs, records or videos, games and other, which belongs to the Entertainment. Then my evening would be completely boring, since I did not have at home Internet.
Artists live on the sales of the plates. The only one, which do not fit me, are the people, which hang there still also in the Music Jungle in it and earn with.
Let´s make this boycott in summer!
Then I ´m normally not at home in the evening.
April 26th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
week , should be spelled weak! totally pointless