Dear subscriber/supporter of www.boycott-riaa.com:

Thanks so much for your recent expression of support. Recent events on the legislative and litigative fronts cause us to increase our scrutiny, and we are doing our best to keep you informed. At the suggestion of many of you, we have started a monthly news letter. Boycott-RIAA and our sister site, dmusic.com , believe in more than just digital music rights.  We believe that core American values guaranteed by the US Constitution such as Freedom of speech, Freedom of assembly, Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, limited copyright and patent monopolies, right to trial by jury and  freedom of thought itself, are being attacked by the music and entertainment industries in the name of "protecting copyrights", or "attacking piracy" or "protecting artists rights".  We are witnessing an Orwellian future unfold before our eyes, orchestrated by copyright monopolies that have no allegiance to any country, let alone the US constitution.  And if you are not from the United States, you should still feel threatened, because our constitutional safeguards are a model for the world, and they must survive this onslaught by the media and entertainment conglomerates who have been constantly attacking these long held rights.

The merger of entertainment and politics is not new; we only have to look to Nixon on Laugh-in, or Ronald Reagan's presidency, or Clinton and Gore on MTV to see the power of the merger. But in the last decade, several trends have coalesced to directly threaten our constitutional freedoms, and they seem to be emanating from the music and entertainment industries.  We believe that we are at a point in history where a dangerous combination of private power and government intrusion imminently threatens our way of life.  We see it in the music industry first, but it is only a harbinger of things to come, unless we act now.  We have prepared a multi-part article that deals with this and related subjects, such as open source, Microsoft and entertainment monopolies. It is a continuing series at Dmusic.com.  Here is an excerpt:

  Copyright vs. Cloneright

Mass digitization of the media and entertainment industries has caused lobbying for repressive litigation to eliminate alternative distribution channels.  Starting on the 1980's there was a rush to digitize, or reduce to binary information, everything under the sun. Color, speech, music, sound, film, music.  Obviously, once something becomes digitized, it is freely or cheaply reproducible in exact copies, whether or not in tangible form. The expenses of printing and distribution are greatly reduced or eliminated. Thus self publishing becomes a realty. New "content"  becomes ubiquitous and therefore cheap. At the same time, old content, once digitized, may be freely copied and moved across computer networks, rendering traditional copyright concepts almost useless.  Every computer that runs windows and its <file><save> commands can copy data files effortlessly regardless of copyright. And Windows 95 and 98 had no security or DRM - digital rights management. That would have been counter intuitive to the computer industry growth mentality of the 1990s.  Microsoft chose to keep the system  DRM-less (and indeed, security-less) for the sake of market share and growth, and is only now turning to DRM and security in Windows XP.  Read the rest of Part One

How can I help defend my rights from the attack by monopolies?

1.  Boycott the RIAA.  Stop buying their products. Our call for boycott is entering its third year.  It may be a coincidence, but sales of RIAA member owned compact discs are down for the last two years in a row, after over twenty years of rising sales. They blame it on record piracy, but a recent report by an Forrester Research, an independent organization http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/5269 disputes that.  We say the reasons are obvious - 

1. Price fixed Cd's  - they should be 10 dollars, not 20 dollars.
2. Inferior music - just listen. Its all TV and Hollywood. Lets face it - ever watch an Elvis movie?  If the art world were run like the music business, Picasso would have had to paint dogs playing poker on velvet.
3. They hate their own customers, calling them pirates and thieves for downloading inferior sounding copies of out of print recordings that you can't hear on radio or purchase if you tried.
4. Institutionalized fraudulent accounting practices are getting exposed everyday, along with Enron, Worldcom, Arthur Anderson, and the rest.
5. Attempting to impede technological progress and the growth of the internet.  

2.  Support and listen to Independent Music  Upload and download your music to places such as DMUSIC.com and avoid RIAA affiliated sites like MP3.com. Buy CD's from artists directly or from online  independent distributors like dmusic.com, cdbaby.com, live365.com, gnutella, soundclick, 1sound, cdstreet just to name a few. YOU WILL QUICKLY LEARN THAT RIAA AFFILIATED MUSIC IS INFERIOR SOUNDING AND REPETITIOUS.  Independent music is fresh and original, and unencumbered by rockstar or prima donna mentality.  Here is an example of an independent artist playlist  and here is another (from Dmusic.com) that you can hear for yourself using free mp3 players in Winamp, Musicmatch, Apple Quicktime, Real Player, or Microsoft (and we prefer them in that order)

3.  Get Your Congressmen and Senators Involved Notify all congressmen and senators from your home state and district that you support copyright reform and oppose attempts by the RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America to expand copyright at the expense of our freedoms.

click here for a list of all senators the email and office addresses
click here for a list of all representatives the email and office addresses
click here for text of a suggested letter to your senator and congressman.
click here for a list of senators and congressman supporting repressive legislation that will affect your rights. 

4.  Keep Informed  There are a number of pieces of pending legislation that directly impact not only the music community, but all consumers and citizens. We urge you to keep up with the progress of these bills as they move through the legislative process. If any of these bills are of particular interest, you should consider phoning or writing your representatives in Washington, DC to discuss the issue. Nothing is more important to the eventual success or failure of legislation than hearing from constituents at home (and you can bet that the large industries who are impacted by these bills are certainly making their voices heard). Here is a little bit of help.

Legislative Update Courtesy of FutureofMusic.org

Competition in Radio and Concert Industries Act Introduced by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) June 27, 2002 Feingold's legislation would help small and independent radio station owners and promoters, and consumers by prohibiting anti-competitive practices in the radio and concert industries. The bill locks in place existing ownership caps (the FCC has been looking at lifting the caps in smaller markets, paving the way for further consolidation). It tightens up payola laws to account for the "pay for play" independent radio promotion system that many call a shakedown. The bill also bans corporations from using their lockdown of radio stations, performance venues and promotion companies in an anticompetitive manner. In essence, this bill is the most serious effort to put forward tangible radio reforms that we have seen. If you care about consolidation of the radio and concert industries, we strongly urge you to contact your representatives' offices to discuss these issues with their appropriate staff members. Read more about the bill here: http://feingold.senate.gov/releases/02/06/062702medcon.html

Peer-to-Peer Piracy Prevention Act Introduced by Howard Berman (D-CA) and Howard Coble (R-NC) July 25, 2002  A highly controversial bill intended to curtail peer-to-peer network sharing by allowing copyright owners (record labels/movie studios) to go after individual infringers through the use of technological means ­ like perusing people's hard drives and deleting files. Because of the leadership roles that both Mr. Berman and Mr. Coble have on the House Judiciary Committee, it is likely that this bill will be the subject of intense debate in early 2003. The Future of Music Coalition firmly believes the most important long term question is how the artists and the industry can work creatively with the technology sector to build legal systems that can benefit artists and music fans, rather than focusing attention on stopping peer-to-peer technologies without legitimate business models in place. That being said, we look forward to a robust debate on this issue, which is already well underway. http://www.house.gov/berman/floor072502.htm

H.R.5285 Internet Radio Fairness Act Introduced by Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) This bill is a response to the webcasting royalty rates discussed elsewhere in this newsletter. This bill, if passed, would exempt webcasters who are small businesses (defined as those with income less than $6 million/year) from the structure adopted by the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel. In many ways, this legislation mirrors the FMC call for an "incubator" license that would allow small start-up webcasters the ability to build an audience before stepping up to the standard royalty rate. While in an ideal world these issues could be resolved without congressional intervention, the reality is that many webcasters may need to rely on legislation to keep themselves on the air. We will continue to track these issues carefully and will hopefully have some better news later in 2002. http://www.house.gov/inslee/tech_internetradio.htm
 

Recent Stories On Boycott-RIAA

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance-Commentary on the California Hearings on Label accounting practices
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/5510

The Cultural Anarchist vs. the Hollywood Police Larry Lessig takes on the Hollywood and Music Cartel
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/5490

Hearings On the Berman Bill Scheduled Sept 26th 9AM (we'll have audio soon)
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/5513

OTHER NEWS LINKS WE RECOMMEND

EMP panel: Music biz, as it exists, is doomed. Experience Music Project Panel on "Where do we go from here?"
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/134525912_emp31.html

Music Revolution or a King on the Loose? Keepin' It Real? Michael Jackson and Al Sharpton take on the music industry by Norman Kelley Village Voice, July 9, 2002 http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0228/kelley.php

Study Says Net Could Benefit Music Firms Web: Sales are down because of the weak economy, report says, but consumers are buying CDs after hearing new bands online. By P.J. Huffstutter LA Times, August 14,2002 http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-music14aug14.story

A Chorus of Angry Piggies Web Broadcasters Endangered by Royalties, KPIG Fans Say By Jonathan Krim Washington Post, August 10, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A851-2002Aug9.html

Ashcroft asked to target song swappers By Andy Sullivan Reuters, Aug 9, 2002
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020810/music_nm/music_co pyright_dc_1

Radio's titan hits the skids After replacing a high-profile exec, Clear Channel, the 800-pound gorilla of the entertainment industry, suddenly faces a lot of banana peels. by Eric Boehlert Salon.com, August 7, 2002 http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/08/07/clear_channel/index.html

The empire strikes back As the music industry's "pay-for-play" scandal deepens, the big five record labels try to crush the expanding power of the dreaded indie promoters. By Eric Boehlert Salon.com, August 7, 2002 http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/08/07/pfp_empire/index.html

Fallout - A follow up to The Internet Debacle By Janis Ian August 1, 2002 http://www.janisian.com/article-fallout.html

Labels to Net Radio: Die Now You'd think the record companies would love Internet tunes instead of trying to kill them By Steven Levy Newsweek, July 15, 2002 Available in Newsweek online archives (cost $2.95)

 

5. Contribute: Even though we are privately funded, and not a 501 c3 tax exempt organization, we will accept any contribution you can give to help us support the Boycott against the RIAA.  Since we care about our supporters we'd like to give you something to show you our deepest gratitude for your contribution.

For any contribution to Boycott-RIAA you will automatically get a subscription to the Boycott-RIAA Monthly Newsletter and 10 no-riaa logo 1" stickers	Contribute Now!
For a $10.00 contribution you will get a great Boycott-RIAA.com mouse pad or 100 1 inch no-riaa logo stickers. ($20.00 FOR BOTH)	Contribute Now!
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For a $25.00 contribution you will get a great Boycott-RIAA.com T-Shirt (Available in S,M,L, and XL) AND mouse pad or 100 1" stickers!	Contribute Now!
For a $50.00 contribution you will get a great Boycott-RIAA.com T-Shirt (Available in S,M,L, and XL) AND mouse pad AND 100 1" stickers and a CD-R of GREAT independent music from Dmusic.com	Contribute Now!
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