I found this while cleaning up my computer. Back when
file sharing was a big thing on our campus (before
Napster was the most efficient way of grabbing mp3s), everyone had an
mp3 shared folder. I had one for over a year, it grew as the size of my hard drive grew.
Finally, when I read the news last November about the students at CMU who got their network access revoked for sharing mp3s, I had enough. I removed all the mp3s from my \mp3 folder, and placed this letter inside.
http://chronicle.com/free/99/11/99110801t.htm
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The RIAA sucks. The labels they represent choke their artists, and inflate record prices to help the Exec's to afford their 3rd mansion, their yacht, and the Lexus GS400 they want to give to their daughter on her 16th birthday. Do you really think it takes $18 to create, package and distribute a CD? Anyone with a burner is going to say "no fucking way", because we can do it for less than $3 / CD, minus the distribution. They completely ignore what's good music, instead focusing on what will sell (take Britney Spears, Hanson, and The Spice Girls for example), and completely fucking over any GOOD acts that are trying their hardest to get signed. They've shutdown sites that have posted LYRICS to songs, not the actual songs themselves, lyrics that in many cases listeners transcribed by ear, not copying it out of the jewel case insert (hell, many older albums didn't include lyrics anyway).
Is this fair? Should we stand to let the RIAA tell us what we should be listening to, and shouldn't be doing? No, but I'm not willing to have my network access revoked.
What should we do? Support indie acts. If you know of a band who plays at clubs and local gigs yet hasn't been signed yet, record their stuff and post it on your website, on the network, on an ftp site. Post acts from www.mp3.com. The RIAA is looking to abolish MP3s, period. Not MP3s of commercial acts that they represent. If we show people that the RIAA is trying to punish us for distributing MP3s that we have a legal right to distribute, no court is going to uphold any rulings in their favor.
They seem to forget that 99% of us that use / distribute MP3s aren't doing it to make a profit.
They ignore the other 1%.
Aye, maybe I was a bit too young and
idealistic.