“RIAA – Really Ignorant Assholes Always”

Hey, that’s pretty funny. The real problem, though, is that none of them are ignorant, they’re really smart people in fact, who seem to think the consuming public owes them something. This new campaign to scare the public “straight” regarding file sharing could in fact alienate such a large percentage of their customers that they openly boycott their products AND get Congress so riled up they actually do something to change the current industry-kissing copyright laws.

This group of independent (as far as I can tell) musicians says “not in our name”:

JUST SAY NO!

This week the RIAA announced that it will now be pursuing lawsuits against individual music lovers using peer-to-peer(P2P) file-sharing networks. We as musicians wish to state our objection to the RIAA’s action, and have issued the statement below, which we would encourage all who are concerned to sign using the form below.

For Immediate Release

MUSICIANS SAY NO TO PERSECUTION AND PROSECUTION OF MUSIC LOVERS

June 30th 2003

In response to the continuing legal attacks by the RIAA and major
record labels on internet music sharing, which now include both
criminal charges and civil suits against individuals, musicians are
joining together to say NO to the action supposedly being taken on
our behalf.

Just because the major labels haven’t figured out a way to make money
out of the internet doesn’t mean that individuals who have shared
music should go to prison, or be forced into bankruptcy. The industry
is alienating the very people it hopes to sell music to in future
with its heavy handed action.

With its collective failure to understand the internet, or the benefit
it derives from the peer to peer networks that have sprung up in the
vacuum created by that failure, the industry has now turned to
desperate methods. Suing your customers one by one is not a business
model.

We can only assume that the intention behind these attacks on
individuals is to create an atmosphere of intimidation in which
music lovers dare not use legally acquired computers to listen to
music, except under very limited terms that the industry intends to
dictate.

As musicians we recognise and defend the right of artists to be
compensated for their work. However, these prosecutions are not
helping musicians, or helping the industry create a better system of
internet distribution.

We ask that the RIAA refrain from assuming our implicit support for
their persecution of individual music lovers, stop equating all free
online music with ‘piracy’, and concentrate its legal sanctions on
the organisations who are making money out of the unauthorised
duplication of our work.

We invite all musicians who support our position to add their names to
this open letter at

Many comments follow and ar well worth checking out – the title of this post comes from one of them.