For A L L That Use P2p Or Share Files

[Will_518]

I agree. Sadly it seems the only thing we can do to help out right now is to start a war, and boycott CDs untill RIAA is will to open their ears and listen.

According to Kazoo, Artists only get paid 5% of profit from CD sales,so I don't see why a liscenced distribution system wouldn't work.

Surely every file sharer is willing to pay $1.5/month -- $3/month to d/l music(10-20% a cd's price, that's equvenlent to each FSer paying the artist 2 -- 4 cd's money every month; how many people buy 4cds every month?) $1.5 to download their favourite music from the net; compared to the $15/month we pay just to surf the net, $1.5 is nothing for all the music you want. But the artists are not earning any less than they were b4.
The only ppl who will be bankrupt from something like this will be orgs like RIAA.

So, i say Support the boycott! Support fair file sharing!! DOWN WITH RIAA!!!

[funny_bunny]

So? A Dollar-fifty for downloading songs. Eh.
Not a Quid-fifty, please note. Or a Euro-fifty or a Drachma-fifty; or even a Globlle-fifty from the planet Drubellastmarkeltarius. Oh no, it has to be a fucking buck-fifty.
I honestly do Love the Americans. Their genuine warmth, their hospitaltity and their generosity; and most of all their (often) wicked sense-of-humour.
But dear God how I hate their fucking arrogance.
Mind you, many years ago during the Iran crisis an Iranian Cleric was asked by a CNN correspondent; "who really rules Iran"? and recieved the reply; "Ayatollah Dollar"! Such is Life!

So what's my point. O.K.
I do subscribe to a web site that allows me to download music in mp3, wma or ogg vorbis and at bit-rates up to 386 kbs.
And that is why I subscribe. In one word. Quality!
Any mp3 at a bit rate lower than 192 kbs is, quite simply, crap.
99% of everything on Kazaa is 128 or less, so from a CD quality point of listening it is abysmally poor. What it does, however, is allow users to hear music by artists that they would never buy because they would probably never hear of them. If they like what they hear they would, I feel, and for the most, part go out and buy albums by that artist, or at least, find out what else was available.
I had never heard of 'Rondo Veneziano' or 'Gregorian; Masters of Chant'.
When I did, and became familiar with their music I bought it at HMV. 5 albums in 8 months.

So, if the RIAA are monitoring this forum, get wise and leave the kids alone.
What they're downloading is just good fun. They are not what is damaging sales.
The ridiculous price being charged is!! Nobody can afford them any more!
If people are successfully prosecuted and fined, or even, God forbid, be sent to jail, they wont blame the faceless,nameless RIAA. They will blame the artists that
the RIAA are representing. They will blame Madonna, They will blame Fifty cent and J Lo, they will blame Rob.... I'm sorry, I have to say, it no matter how painful it is, Robbie Williams!!!!
I can see the headlines in The Sun now

TENNAGERS JAILED FOR ROBBI[NG] WILLIAMS!

Fifty million in the bank and five houses aren't enough? You have to take the only Dollar-fifty I got.
On that note [and a half] I'd like to say; "Hasta la Vista, Baby"! but I'd be sued for copyright infringement if I did, and Arnie is NOT the man I want to mess with so I'll wimp out with Goodnight, folks!

[Will_518]

I'm sorry i have to say this:

I'm not American, I've never lived or even been to America in my life. I'm Chinese by nationality and currently lives in UK , so I don't think American arrogance would apply here.
I only used the US dollar because most people can identify with it, everyone aroung the world knows how much a dollar is roughly, a big pack of crisps, 6 chocolate bars in a multi sale, a ice cream on a hot day by the beach... Had I used Yen, Yuan or pound I think people would get confused. How many people knows how much a ROC Yuan is worth in real life terms? How many of them are on this forum? Not many. So, i just used $ because it's simpler and clearer.

Yeah, mp3s on Kazaa are not good quality, most are 128kb/s, some even 64kb/s; but as the saying goes "the more you pay, the more you get." $1.5 a month for a lot of medium quality music is worth it, at least in my opinion. You can listen to it as backgroud music when surfing the net, playing games, even when doing homework essays; as long as you don't make CDs with them, most people wouldn't know the difference. Of course, people will still buy quality CDs for the songs they like; and some people will always think quality is everything. But the difference with file sharing is, everyone will be listening to a lot more music, people will have a lot more choice.

I think file sharing is good for everybody, common people, music artist, and music as a whole; (everybody except orgs like RIAA of course). File sharing really brings music to the people.
150 years ago, if someone wanted to listen to music, they had to go to a concert; then came records, that didn't stop people going to the concerts; then came the radio, which brought music to people's homes, at first the records companies tried to sue it to hell, but the radio actually increased record sales; Then there came TV, Cable TV, Sat TV, Internet radio, each of them does the same thing as Napster, Kazaa, Emule... -- bring music to the people, but did any of them push cassetts or CDs out of business? No, instead, they most probably increased CD sales. So, I don't see the difference between what Kazaa is today and what radio was in the 20s and 30s.
RIAA is like a cockroach trying to stop the wheel of human advance, it will inevitably fail.
But the big question is how many innocent people will be sued, get fined, or even go to prison before RIAA fails?!

[RealitY]

I truly believe that Congress will step in shortly with the latest madness involving SBC. A recent email I got from EFF...

* Pacific Bell Sues Recording Industry for Customer Privacy

Electronic Frontier Foundation Supports ISP Resistance

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation applauds a lawsuit
brought by Pacific Bell Internet Services on July 31 against three
organizations that are manipulating copyright laws to violate the privacy
of ISP customers.

The case concerns 97 subpoenas directed to Pacific Bell over the past two
weeks. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has issued
thousands of subpoenas to various ISPs, seeking the identity of music fans
who use peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks.

The lawsuit alleges that the RIAA, along with MediaForce, a company that
issues millions of "cease-and-desist" letters to ISPs, and Titan Media, a
gay-themed adult entertainment company, have distorted certain provisions
of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) in an attempt to force
Pacific Bell to breach its customers' privacy.

Pacific Bell seeks a declaration from the court that any further subpoenas
and cease-and-desist letters for peer-to-peer file sharing activity must
follow some court-established safeguards ensuring that there is some
evidence of illegal activity before divulging personal information about
ISP customers.

"The misuse of the subpoena process by an adult entertainment company
emphasizes the potential for abuse with insufficient privacy protections in
the law," explained EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "Without vetting by any
court, companies can issue subpoenas that disclose the identities of
targeted individuals and link their names to gay-themed adult porn, making
it impossible for them to regain their privacy later even if the
allegations are patently false."

This case highlights the privacy problems that led over 44 organizations to
join with EFF in opposing the subpoena process in a similar case involving
Verizon in Washington, DC, currently pending before a federal appeals
court.

"The DC Court dismissed our concerns about subpoena process abuse as
premature," added EFF Staff Attorney Gwen Hinze. "The California Court will
have an opportunity to consider critical privacy concerns in light of the
thousands of subpoenas the RIAA has issued as a clear abuse of the subpoena
process."

The RIAA's crusade has already drawn the concerned attention of Congress.
Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) recently announced an investigation into the
issuance of the subpoenas and the threatened lawsuits.

EFF applauds both Pacific Bell and Senator Coleman and urges concerned
citizens to learn more about ways to make filesharing legal while getting
artists paid at our Let the Music Play Campaign.

Links
For this release:
http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/20030731_eff_pr.php

Complaint in Pacific Bell v. RIAA case:
http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/PacBell_v_RIAA.pdf

RIAA v. The People:
http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/riaa-v-thepeople.php

Story about Senator Norm Coleman's inquiry:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,...3,59862,00.html

EFF Let the Music Play campaign:
<http://www.eff.org/share/

It would be very nice to see other ISP&#39;s follow suit, since they actually stand to loose quite a chunck of income if this goes the wrong way. No P2P, or P2P while looking over ones shoulder, and many of us will walk, especially broadband users. I have recently been contacting the legal departments of various ISP&#39;s to see what stand they are taking on this, most seem irratated and are atad neutral still yet. I would suggest in addition to the letters and boycotts, address those in charge at your ISP and let them know how you feel, and that you will walk if they fudge on this matter.

In truth the ISP&#39;s at the moment can be our strongest supporter here or become our biggest problem. I think the ISP&#39;s are willing and ready to stand behind us on this one, so let them know how you feel as well.

[christovan]

(so i havent posted a lot who cares?)

I dont know if this has been mentioned in this post before, but i have seen it "in-between" the lines.

Why should we have to pay almost &#036;20.00 for music that costs about 15 cents a copy to make (CD&#39;s) ? I see it this way, the RIAA deservers all this filesharing shit thats out there, its thier fault because they charge soo much for the fucking CD. maybee if they thought about lowering cd prices to like 5 bucks people would consider buying them. I know that if i Downloaded something that I like from kazaa lite or wherever i would end up buying a real copy of it for 5 bucks. because tehre are a lot of people out tehre who are lazy and would end up buying th ecd just so they dont have to check the mp3 files and make sure tehya re real no skips etc.... Filesharing should remain free and it will end up remaining free. The RIAA is just another corp. that thinks the average US citizen is dumb, and will pay outragous prices for music that costs a fraction of its cost to produce&#33;

and im finally done B)

[esmusic]

Hola,

I have attained some movies that have [smr] tags in the title

i cannot view movies that say [smr] in the title.......
is this some new type of file?

new media [smr]?

what is [smr]

..........jose

[wormless]

i agree with chrisvan, they dnt cost much 2 make but we pay a fortune in shops jus 4 something were not gonna listen2 everyday.they should lower the prices and anyway we have shops tht sell them cheaper than most retail stores.

[syboro]

im from australia so i cant send a letter but good on you to all those that can&#33; And just a little side note to those who shall remain un-named.....a thankyou to those who are trying to do something would be nice........ after all they are in effect helping all of us here&#33;&#33;

[echidna]

As another Australian i applaud Reality for this constructive encouragement to all of the US members of the forum to act. To all the Americans who say they can&#39;t be bothered, i say to you &#39;apathetic people like you are what is most wrong with the USA get off your fat asses and stand up for yourselves. Of course the government won&#39;t listen to mutes.&#39;
I hope similar possibilities for UK, Australian and other nationalities will be posted as they become available. [ARIA is joining the RIAA in this insanity]
But as with many issues in the world today if the USA relents then the rest of the world will follow

Fight the power&#33;

[Mr.Maniotis]

Originally posted by REALITY@25 July 2003 - 10:23
Though we have been labeled criminals for loving music. This is now officially out of hand, with lists of usernames to be sued

For loving music? No, for stealing music and distributing it to others to steal. Be honest with yourself. Don&#39;t blame the RIAA for attempting to enforce the law. Instead work on the musicians, producers, artists, marketing people, distributors, etc. - you know, those who produce the music you love - to do it for free&#33;

Or, work on changing the current world monetary system where people need to be paid for the work they produce in order to make a living.

Or, convince them to take as little money for doing this work as they can get away with. This way, you wouldn&#39;t be able to complain about the cost of buying their product. Of course, that would mean you would have to go to your boss and ask to have your pay reduced to the bare minimum. That would only be fair, yes?

If you accomplish that, you will be my hero&#33;

Good luck&#33;