*here* is a highly visible direct link back to the full item. But for those who don’t understand what a link is for, you’ve very kindly posted the whole thing. Many thanks for that : )

So…does it follow that this supports the idea that the RIAA is trying to limit WHAT we listen to, and therefore, WHAT we buy? I spent over $300 in a CD-buyiing spree, and none of it on the RIAA.

*****If the RIAA can stop file sharing, they can stop our opportunity to hear tons and tons of non-RIAA products. ****

The more this insanity continues, the more I believe this is their motive. Eliminate the opportunity to hear non-RIAA artists, and Eliminate The Competition for our dollars. In effect they will elimiate the true art of our generation, in the name of protecting their commercial garbage.

I also drift back to the basic idea of why oh why cannot we let others hear the music we have? How else do you discover what it is you like enough to give up your money for? Common sense tells me that the RIAA knows it has an inferior product that will no longer support its posh lifestyle. And, NO, I DO NOT want to spend $.99 for a “tune” I havent heard. The RIAA’s actions are squelching ART in the name of protecting their crappy “tunes.”

I am 50 years old. When I was a teen, we swapped and borrowed vinyl albums. What we “had to have” we bought. The internet has just made that so much easier. Still, what we “have to have” we buy! duh.

Please, you college kids, FIGHT BACK!

I am not affiliated with this site, but use it a LOT:
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/

The whole quote is this:

While the industry fine-tunes its methods for preventing illegal downloading, universities and colleges have been discussing their responsibilities. “Many of us in academe strongly take the position that while we’ll educate our students about copyright, we are not in the business of prosecuting infringement, especially if that means that we are asked to start looking at the content of e-mail or other Internet communications of our students and faculty,” Phelps said.

“But we’re willing to work with the recording industry,” he added. “A core mission of a university is to create intellectual property, and we are very conscious of the need to respect the ownership of what we create and invent on our campuses. We respect the ownership of artists’ ‘creative property’ as well.”

Universities understand that personal property rights are one of the bedrock principles of advanced human societies. You don’t. That’s the problem.

I should also point out an item found later in the article:

The Feb. 16 event will include discussion of some of those ideas, challenging disgruntled file-swappers to help change—rather than violate—existing statutes and regulations.

This points out another bedrock principle of advanced human societies: the rule of law. If a law is unjust, you try to change it. You don’t understand that either.

But then, those criminally inclined never do.