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p2pnet view Freedom | P2P:- Things are getting interesting with TalkTalk, the company which says its against the entertainment cartel’s three strikes and you’re off the net bidniz plan, at the same time promoting a corporate industy application which’ll encourage parents to spy on their kids.

To make things worse, it’ll also “help the content industry by blacklisting sites that have BitTorrent files on them”, says TalkTalk owner Carphone Warehouse.

There seems to be little, if anything, to choose between Peter Mandelson, the British ‘noble’ who’s the Hollywood and Big Music front in the UK for the Three Strikes scheme, and Charlie Dunstone (right), Carphone founder and CEO.

They’re both cynically acting in the best interests of the entertainment industry (and themselves) and against those of the people upon whom they depend.

And not only is TalkTalk using Three Strikes to boost itself as a model corporate citizen, it’s also paying a PR company to grease the wheels.

But maybe it’s wrong to mention TalkTalk and Carphone in the same breath.

Because next week Dunstone and Carphone finance director Roger Taylor “will start briefing investors in the UK and the US” about a “demerger,” says the Financial Times, going on >>>

They are likely to have to field questions about the risks facing the two new listed entities: TalkTalk and New Carphone Warehouse, which will hold a 50 per cent stake in Best Buy Europe. Best Buy owns the remainder of Best Buy Europe.

This spring Best Buy Europe will open its first four ‘big box’ stores in the UK that are supposed to transform consumer electronics retailing.

The stores, covering between 25,000 to 45,000 sq ft, will sell an array of goods including televisions, laptops and games consoles.

But the move coincides with the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, and some analysts are sceptical that Best Buy Europe can succeed with its plans for 100 stores across Europe by 2014.

Mr Taylor, who will be chief executive of New Carphone Warehouse, seeks to reassure investors by highlighting Best Buy’s intimate knowledge of running large consumer electronics stores in the US. ‘We’re partnered with the best in the world to make sure that we execute well,’ he says.

For TalkTalk, “the big risk is that its profitable telecoms business model is undermined by technology advances”, says the story.

That, and the fact it’s apparently actively in favour of online censorship.

But Dunstone is “keen to dispel the notion that the demerger is designed to facilitate a sale of Talk Talk, even though analysts and bankers say the split could prompt bids from rivals including BT, British Sky Broadcasting and Telefónica’s O2 subsidiary,” says the FT.

Stay tuned.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

blacklisting sites – File sharers should be charged for appeals, January 30, 2010
Financial Times – Dunstone faces questions on demerger, January 30, 2010

February, 2010

Hi all:

Since Monday when I said I’d run out of gas, nine people have donated $340.05 in amounts varying from $2.00 to $100.

Thanks.

The guys at Frostwire will be there, as always, and I’m waiting to hear back from TekSavvy. But they’ve always been in p2pnet’s corner and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that nothing has changed there either.

Yesterday I was contacted by an advertising company which looks as though it might be a fit with p2pnet. I’ll be speaking with them a little later and I’ll let you know how it works out. You never know. And I’ve been shaking the trees in other areas.

Trying to scam people

On Monday I said I’d had one nasty email. Basically, it accused me of trying to scam people by pretending to close down when really, I’m raking it in from donations. I’ve had a couple more since then saying pretty much the same.

Yes, when my sponsor and two major advertisers pulled out, I rang the alarm bell. Then soon afterward I said I’d probably be staying up after all. That was because I thought I’d been able to arrange a second mortgage. But it fell through and now I’m back where I started in terms of having (no) money available.

However, I want to make it clear that thanks to Cliff Haerden, my new host who runs multibox.be over in Belgium, whatever else happens, or doesn’t happen, the site will stay online so existing content will still be available, with or without ads.

And I still haven’t given up.

p2pnet Mark II

Even if I’m not posting, there are still quite a few emails to answer.

For example, I’ve said a couple of times I’ve had a project in mind which would be a kind of p2pnet Mark II and someone asked why I haven’t gone into detail.

I’d love to share it and get readers involved, and it’s not you guys who are stopping me.

Honestly, I’m afraid one or more of the empty eyed corporate sharks with lots of money and no morals will chomp it up. But if I can figure out a way, I’ll post on it.

How does that song go? Doop, doop, doop, doop, Staying Alive, staying alive …

Heh

Cheers! Jon Newton

February, 2010

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Bonjour à nouveau:

Life is wierd, full of strange twists and turns.

Waaaay off topic, but because it’s something my life depends on, I’m doing another post.

In Me again , a little earlier, “Following my announcement, yesterday, that I’ve had to close down, a lot of people on- and offline have thanked me for p2pnet,” I said, going on, “You’re all welcome. But this was as much for me as it was for you. For far too long I was an addict, a drain on society. So it’s been wonderful for me to be able to put something back.”

And that’s the truth.

But what’s kind of eerie is: I had several completely unexpected emails, a Fa$ebook link and a couple of tweets from people who, like me, are addicts. (Actually, I don’t know for sure if the Fa$ebook link was anything to do with addictions, but the way it was expressed suggested it might have been … )

There was also a new comment from leroy on a post I did a while back about my own B&D troubles, and which I’d referred to in Me again Maybe he went there because of that.

I don’t know. But it’s clear a lot of people are having trouble with various substances, and it doesn’t matter if it’s chocolate, dope, booze or even sex.

Too much of anything is too much.

Says Leroy in a Reader’s Write >>>

Me and my partner have been off weed for a month. Feels amazing – so much has happened that is positive in the last few weeks. Determined to make it a year or more, sounds pathetic, but it’s a goal.

Nothing pathetic about it, mate. It’s more than a goal. It’s a new life.

Leroy goes on >>>

Hopefully this pot fast will end up being for like a lifetime, and hopefuly I can help others eventually.

I’m addicted to weed and used to say the same thing that other guy was saying, that it’s not addictive. It is. I’ve seen the past 9 years since 9/11 fly by in a puff. Here’s to a day at a time.

Here’s what I said to Leroy:

“And if you can’t make it through a day, do it by the hour. If not by the hour, then by the minute. I did it by the minute. And it worked.”

These last few weeks have been tough and I’ll tell you straight: more than once I jokingly said to my wife, ‘Maybe I’ll go out and get a bottle and an ounce of BC Bud’.

Except I wasn’t joking.

But thanks to my higher power, I stayed clean and sober.

I’m not religious. In fact, quite the opposite. But I believe there’s something out there that’s much greater than me. I can’t define it or describe it, but I know it’s there.

At the end of my post on my own addiction, “Yesterday is history and tomorrow is a mystery,” I wrote, adding >>>

…  after a while, I’m far enough away from my last drink or toke to begin to understand a few things.

While you’re using,  only one aspect of yourself is allowed to exist. And this part of you has only one interest: getting stoned.

I used to believe I couldn’t do any of the things I did while I was using. Play guitar. Draw. Write. But I was wrong. Big Time wrong.

It’s not a trick

I could go on, but there’s a bottom line, and it’s this:

None of us has any more than the one single minute of time that’s our life. And knowing that, we can survive anything.

Anything at all.

We can’t resist a drink. Or a smoke. Or a bar of chocolate for a week. Or day. Or an hour.

But we can do it for the minute we’re in. And the minute after that. And the minute after that.

It seems dumb. But think about it.

It’s not a trick.

All you have is right now, it’s all you’ve ever had, and it’s never been any other way.

By coincidence, one of my last posts yesterday was, Is Michael Bublé a pot head? ‘Embittered ex-girlfriend’.

In a comment post, “Michael Bublé is a normal guy”, says Dave. “Hardly news …”

Cheers!

Jon Newton

February, 2010

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

February, 2010

Hi all:

I feel terrible and deeply moved at the same time.

Following my announcement, yesterday, that I’ve had to close down, a lot of people on- and offline have thanked me for p2pnet.

You’re all welcome. But this was as much for me as it was for you. For far too long I was an addict, a drain on society. So it’s been wonderful for me to be able to put something back.

Someone just wished me good luck “in your next act”. But this was no act. I put everything I had into p2pnet. Someone else said I was ahead of my time, but I don’t agree. The time for blogs which speak out is right now.

I wasn’t planning on doing any more posts — at least, not for a while — but a great many people have asked why I can’t continue with p2pnet — maybe just part time.

Well, for me, p2pnet is far more than just a blog and it isn’t something I can dip in and out of.

It’s been my life. I’ve been running it in the conviction that people can, and do, make a difference.  I’ve always seen myself as a very ordinary guy who, completely by accident, ended up with a platform I and others could use to say what we thought.

I’m based in Canada but anyone who believes communications in the 21st digital century are confined to countries and borders is living in a dream.

People aren’t ‘consumers’ existing in, and to be ‘exploited’ by and through ‘product bases’, any more. We have free will and free speech we’re all now part of a global society whose members talk with each other individually and collectively all the time.

And that’s frightening the living shit out of the Powers That Used To Be.

How can I keep p2pnet going?

If I can find four people with $10,000 each to spare, they can become equal partners, with me, in p2pnet. Or eight people with $5,000. Or 16 people with $2,500. Or 32 people with $1,250. Or 64 people …

I know, I know. That’s not going to happen. But if enough people came together with small amounts, I could probably keep going. I’d certainly like to.

As I’ve just said in emails, I believe p2pnet going down is significant at a time when government and corporate corruption is bad and getting worse, and when voices speaking out in the name of freedom are few and getting fewer.

Yesterday I said I’ve broken important stories, but I’ve also stood up to bullies who’ve tried to shut my mouth. That isn’t fun.

However, it’s simple. Like everyone else, I have bills to pay. So as much as I’d love to keep on keeping on, I just can’t do it.

Here’s where it’s at.

Bandwidth and hosting costs are covered, thanks to Cliff Haerden in Belgium. He runs multibox.be and he’s the reason that although p2pnet won’t be published any more, it won’t actually disappear.

I need a bare minimum of $3,500 Canadian a month to survive. A very large lump of that is for a mortgage and another large lump is for debt I incurred to keep p2pnet going when there was no income. The rest is for food, gas, electricity, water, and so on.

We’re not extravagant people. Neither Liz nor I drink or smoke. We don’t go out. We don’t buy expensive clothes and stuff. In fact, we get everything we wear in thrift stores. Liz is an avid recycler and she does all of the maintenance work in our house. She also cooks everything we eat, including baking our bread.

If this looks like I’m complaining, I’m not. I have a great life and a loving wife and daughter. I have music all around me all the time. I’m a musician myself.

If I could get three $10.5K up front to keep going for another three months, I would. But I’ve tried that and it didn’t work, which is why I’ve had to close things down.

So, folks, for the next little while I’ll be focusing on trying to get some money coming in. If and when that happens, I’ll try and do a post here and there. And if I ever get back to a point where my expenses are fully covered, I’ll get p2pnet running again.

For now, thanks for all your good wishes.

And thanks for being my friend. It means a lot.

Cheers!

Jon Newton

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

February, 2010

p2pnet view P2P:- Hi everyone: This will be p2pnet’s last post because, to borrow a phrase from Wikileaks, I can’t “meaningfully continue operations until costs are covered”.

I’m closing down. And so is Wikileaks.

“To concentrate on raising the funds necessary to keep us alive into 2010, we have reluctantly suspended all other operations, but will be back soon,” it says. “We protect the world — but will you protect us?”

I can’t claim p2pnet has been protecting the world, but I’ve done my best to unspin some of the vested interest corporate spin, and expose a few of the lies and corruption.

I launched p2pnet close to 10 years ago and in that time I’ve published thousands of pages on topics ranging from Big Music’s black-hearted persecution of its own customers, through the CBC’s amazing new US licensing plan to Is Michael Bublé a pot head? and The Wonder that is iPad!, to quote from some of today’s posts.

But that was the gloss. For the meat, I believe I’m the only person who’s consistently covered the stories of the victims of the RIAA sue ‘em all campaign from the beginning. And I know I’m the only one who’s stressed how the entertainment (and software) industries are corrupting the minds of our children in and out of their classroms. And all in the name of the bottom line.

I’ve also broken what I believe are important stories such as Google’s censorship in China, traffic throttling in Canada and the first mention of the Hollywood / Big Music ‘graduated response’ (three strikes) plans.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not comparing myself to Wikileaks, but I truly believe sites such as p2pnet are absolutely essential for freedom of speech, and the health of the internet generally.

I’ve tried various offline ways to raise money to keep p2pnet going but half-an-hour ago I learned my last hope had gone down the tubes.

Wikileaks says its yearly budget is $600,000. Mine is about $40,000 (give or take, and with no room for frills).

If anyone’s interested in either buying in to p2pnet for up to 49%, or perhaps merging with me, please let me know.

Thanks to my host, Cliff Haerden over in Belgium, p2pnet will at least stay online and if anyone is interested in contributing posts, please send them to me – p2pnet @ shaw dot ca. If you do, please include sources, and let me know if you want to be named or anonymous. I’ll do my best to see they go up reasonably quickly.

For myself, my first priority will be to find a way to pay the mortgage and keep food on the table. When I’ve done that, I’ll turn to what I believe is a unique on- and offline communications project — p2pnet on steroids, in effect.

Of course, if I can pull any rabbits out of any hats, I’ll reboot p2pnet, even if it’s only on a limited basis.

Thanks to everyone who’s made p2pnet what it is and who’ve become my friends. Thanks to the people who’ve posted readers’ writes, and sent me tips. Thanks to the people who’ve allowed me to re-run their articles. And thanks to the advertisers and my anonymous sponsor who allowed  me to keep p2pnet going for as long as this.

Truly.

Cheers! And all the best …

Jon Newton

[PS - if anyone's looking for a writer with online experience ... ]

Hi again:

My ISP, Shaw.ca, is having major email probs – nothing in or out. So if you’ve emailed me and I haven’t answered, that’s why. From the look of it, service won’t be resumed any time soon. Also, it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to retrieve it. So if it’s important, please wait until tomorrow and try again.

UPDATE: It looks as thought I can receive, but not send — unless I use web mail.

Stay tuned.

Cheers! And thanks …

February 1, 2010

p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- Apple has been cored so many times it isn’t funny any more. But the Apple Faithful not only keep it afloat, but laud it like it really is something special.

The latest farce centres on the Apfel iPadt which we recently said resembles a big iPhone.

“If it’d been released by any other company, it would’ve inspired a certain amount of coverage, mainly in the trade media. But it’s yet another Apple thingie so it’s FRONT PAGE NEWS !!!”

As p2pnet observed, “Every time Steve Jobs breaks wind, it’s reported as a major event by the lamescream media”.

We clipped the pic on the right from a great story in Britain’s Daily Mail which carries other equally pertinent imagery.

“Criticism of the iPad centred on the following features – or lack of them,” it says, to wit:

• No multitasking
• No camera
• No Flash
• Touch keyboard
• Lack of input
• Closed applications
• Small screen

And the name.

“Some female bloggers wryly commented probably didn’t have any women on its marketing team and ‘iTampon’ quickly became a cheeky trending topic on the micro-blogging site Twitter,” says the Mail, adding:

“A YouTube clip from 2006, now enjoying a fresh surge of popularity, shows the term ‘iPad’ has been ridiculed for years. In the comedy skit shown on the Fox TV channel, two women discuss an Apple period-maintenance device called the iPad.”

Is Steve Jobs worried?

Not. The marketing and PR was free.

But even without the lamescream press corpse, the iPad will be fine for it is written:

“Yea! And Apple shall Triumph! For no matter what the product or what the cost, the Apple Faithful shall buy. And buy. And buy … ”

No need to stay tuned.

(Cheers, RW)

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

resembles a big iPhone – The Glory that’s the Apple iPad !, January 28, 2010
Daily Mail – You cannot be serious!, January 29, 2010
p2pnet – Is the iPad nigh?, January 20, 2010

February, 2010

I’m re-publishing a number of p2pnet stories highlighting RIAA depredations against Big 4 customers. And lest we forget: it’s easy to see these crimes against ordinary people, including young children, as being perpetrated by faceless corporations.

However, highly intelligent, highly educated men and women such as Jay Berman, Hilary Rosen, Cary Sherman, Amy Weiss, Jenny Engebretsen, Cara Duckworth and Jonathan Lamy, all of whom have been, or still are, dedicated RIAA troopers, have been knowingly and deliberately using the mainstream media to people they knew full well were innocent to public ridicule and embarrassment accusing them, without a shred of evidence, of being “massive online distributors of copyrighted music”.

I believe some 40,000 people were victimised in this way.

Only two ultimately reached the US civil court system, but the primary objective had been achieved:

* Create a climate of terror under which to operate a bizarre marketing campaign.

Remember: all of these atrocities — because that’s exactly what they are — were carried out in the names of artists the labels have under contract, and “rights holders”, ie, the major labels, or one of more of their scores of subsidiaries.

Thanks and Cheers!

Jon Newton – p2pnet

___________________________

p2pnet.net:- Big Music has a string of agencies strategically sited around the world. With names such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), BPI (British Phonographic Industry), IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry), ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association of America), CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) and so on, they purport to be looking after the interests of the hundreds of record labels.

But to all intents and purposes, they’re the exclusive properties of four multi-billion-dollar mega companies which rule the corporate music industry with an iron hand.

They are EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (US) and their so-called trade associations are in fact vicious enforcement outfits whose principal job is to make sure ‘consumers’ consume, consume, consume, rigidly toeing the corporate line as they do so.

To make sure that happens without halt, the Big 4 are using the international law courts to terrorise innocent people such as Tanya Andersen and her daughter, Kylee (right), to make their point.

Andersen and her lawyer, Lory Lybeck, recently joined the ranks of former RIAA victims who’d forced the Big 4 enforcer to scurry off, tail between its legs.

But before that happened, “It was a living nightmare,” she told me.

‘Criminals’ and ‘thieves’

Using mass propaganda techniques identical to those originally developed in the early part of the 20th century and honed to perfection by the Nazis during World War II, the Big 4 have been able to turn a purely commercial transgression, copyright infringement, into a major crime on the scale of rape and murder, calling people who share copyrighted music with each other ‘criminals’ and ‘thieves,’ although no crime has been committed and nothing has been stolen.

“Propagandists use a variety of propaganda techniques to influence opinions and to avoid the truth,” says the Center for Media & Democracy. “Often these techniques rely on some element of censorship or manipulation, either omitting significant information or distorting it.”

It’s also called ’spin’ and mis- and disinformation maestros such as the RIAA’s Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman distort and twist the truth to suit the ends of their masters, the major record labels who use these techniques to uphold completely unsupportable claims against people such as Tanya, a disabled mother living on medical benefits and her daughter Kylee, who’s only 10.

The Big 4, so rich that it’ll probably never be possible to assess their true worth, claim unblushingly that the Andersens and people like them are “devastating” them and causing terrible distress to both artists and record industry workers.

Demonstrating their complete disregard the mental well-being of a child, the RIAA actually tried to set its lawyers loose on Kylee. It was defeated only after strenuous efforts on the part of her mother and Lybeck.

The only people being “devastated” are, moreover, the Tanyas and Kylees and the 30,000 or so other RIAA victims, not one of whom has yet appeared before a judge or a jury, or been found guilty of anything.

And even when a customer caves in to an extortionate out-of-court settlement, it’s not necessarily the end of things. Every time one of the victims, who universally deny they’ve done anything wrong, agrees to pay the RIAA to drop a case, the Big 4 enforcer acquires a virtual admission of guilt (not to mention a wealth priceless personal data) which potentially allows it to reopen the case sometime in the future.

However, the RIAA is being forced to drop more and more of its cases as more and more people stand against it. Because this isn’t a righteous campaign on the part of a genuinely distressed industry group. It’s the hard-core persecution of a small group of people who are literally unable to defend themselves by an equally small group of venal companies whose only interest is keeping their shareholders happy.

Bizarre marketing battle

To read corporate press reports, the Big 4 are winning this bizarre marketing battle against their own customers.

However, nothing could be further than the truth and literally hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people around the world are opening Net accounts to tap the burgeoning independent sites launched by musicians and bands, entrepreneurs offering affordable music downloads —– and, of course, the free p2p networks.

Against that, the number of people Big Music has managed to pillory count only in the thousands. In other words, the likelihood of any individual being specifically targeted is close to zero. But that doesn’t matter, the labels believe, because they and major Hollywood studio media elements exert almost limitless control over most segments of mainstream print and electronic press.

This allows the music cartels, in particular, to explode the tiny handful of cases currently in process – the vast majority of which have never reached the courts and never will – into examples of a wave of successful ‘prosecutions’.

Refusing to be bludgeoned

For decades the major labels have been ripping off their customers with shoddy, overpriced ‘product’. However, the picture is changing in this 21st digital century. Thanks to the Net, blogs, IM, email, chat, news sites, cellphones and other communications vehicles which have become common, consumers have become customers again and far worse (from the Big Music perspective), these now well-informed people can, and do, completely bypass the corporate outlets, gaining access to unspun information in a manner never before possible.

More and more people are refusing to be bludgeoned by the Big 4 and Andersen was one of the first to decide she wasn’t going put up with it, the fact she had no money and no legal resources to back her up notwithstanding. She was able to get Oregon lawyer Lory Lybeck on her side and together, they’ve fought the RIAA to a standstill.

The RIAA may have dropped its case against her, but now she’s fighting for recompense, so it’s not completely over and before the RIAA slithered away, “I felt constant fear and extreme stress,” Andersen says, going on:

There wasn’t a day that didn’t go by where I didn’t think about and wonder what my daughter and my future would be like, what kind of a future would we have, and after all this mess, if we would even be able to afford the basic necessities of life. I wondered often if I would mentally be able to handle all that was happening. The lawsuit affected my daughter greatly. There were times she was afraid what was going to happen.

The lawsuit did a lot of damage to my health, my life with my daughter, and relationships with other people. It made me short-tempered, overwhelmed, nervous and stressed.

At times I would be so edgy and short that I would snap at things I never normally would.

Through this lawsuit, I’ve been humiliated, embarrassed, shamed, and my privacy has been greatly violated by the other side.

They not only deposed my 10-year-old daughter, but, deposed my grown step-kids (who I’ve long been divorced from the father), friends, etc.

At one point, they even tracked down and called my new landlord. I had been living here for only one month. They’ve asked and investigated quite a bit of extremely personal information, which was very humiliating.

As you know, I never did what the RIAA accused me of. There was no need for this lawsuit to ever even take place. I did everything humanly possible from the day I received the first letter to tell them there was a mistake. I even offered for my computer to be looked at from the beginning. They didn’t want to listen. I’ll never under why they continued to put me through the drug out nightmare that they have.

The real tragedy is: the suffering undergone by the Andersens and all the others is completely unnecessary. P2p, file sharing and other forms of digital distribution are here to stay whether the Big 4, Hollywood or any of the other vested corporate interests like it or not.

Sooner or later, they’ll be forced to bite the bullet and start treating their customers with respect and as reasonable people, instead of potential criminals.

Still, the conglomerates have achieved at least one thing: they’ve created an already vast and steadily growing base of new consumers who’ll do almost anything rather than go anywhere near the Big 4, or anyone associated with them.

This in turn means the corporations will be forced to compete for the first time in their lives, and this can only ultimately mean a lowering of prices and a raising of standards, things which have been desperately needed for decades.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

___________________

• p2pnet RIAA Special, 9 ‘We’re living from paycheck to paycheck’ http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35047
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 8 p2pnet RIAA poll: final results http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35045
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 7 RIAA vs Kylee hits the mainstream http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35043
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 6 Take a hike, students tell RIAA http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35040
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 5. Us, Them, p2p and file sharing  http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35028
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 4. P2p file sharing contained: RIAA http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35024
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 3. Big Music university shill report http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35022
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 2. The ‘We’re Not Taking Any More’ club http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35016
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 1. File sharing, p2p criminals http://www.p2pnet.net/story/34990

February, 2010

I’m re-publishing a number of p2pnet stories highlighting RIAA depredations against Big 4 customers. And lest we forget: it’s easy to see these crimes against ordinary people, including young children, as being perpetrated by faceless corporations.

However, highly intelligent, highly educated men and women such as Jay Berman, Hilary Rosen, Cary Sherman, Amy Weiss, Jenny Engebretsen, Cara Duckworth and Jonathan Lamy, all of whom have been, or still are, dedicated RIAA troopers, have been knowingly and deliberately using the mainstream media to people they knew full well were innocent to public ridicule and embarrassment accusing them, without a shred of evidence, of being “massive online distributors of copyrighted music”.

I believe some 40,000 people were victimised in this way.

Only two ultimately reached the US civil court system, but the primary objective had been achieved:

* Create a climate of terror under which to operate a bizarre marketing campaign.

Remember: all of these atrocities — because that’s exactly what they are — were carried out in the names of artists the labels have under contract, and “rights holders”, ie, the major labels, or one of more of their scores of subsidiaries.

Thanks and Cheers!

Jon Newton – p2pnet

___________________________

p2pnet.net news view:- “I can barely walk,” RaeJ told me. “It’s rough and we’re living from paycheck to paycheck.”

RaeJ Schwartz (Ray-Jay) is a seriously ill New York mother who’s being persecuted by the Big Four Organized Music Cartel’s RIAA.

She has multiple sclerosis, but that doesn’t seem to trouble the RIAA, short for Recording Industry Association of America, owned by Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany).

It’s also almost implied that MS is something which can be lightly dismissed. But it isn’t. It’s an awful disease, and there’s no known cure.

“As a person with MS I think I get a little leeway in my coming in on this late,” says a slashdot poster, going on:

MS symptoms are elevated by emotional inputs like Stress. I’m sure that the case is putting her into undo stress and in turn making life VERY hard. When you know that something like this is hanging over your head even a ‘normal’ person would freak out. Imagine (if you can or even want to) trying to deal with this while being literally paralyzed by it. The longer this drags out the more she has to go through physical suffering as well as the emotional suffering of feeling wrongfully accused. She has my support and well wishes (and as much solumedrol as she needs to help)

Another slashdot post says:

My mother had Secondary Progressive MS [msif.org]. In addition to the exacerbation of physical symptoms the emotional effects of stress on someone who has already been robbed of her physical self reliance cannot be overemphasized.

After living with MS for forty of her sixty-two years my mother could no longer take it and killed herself.

Since she was physically incapable of any active suicide method (opening a pill bottle, holding a razor or even a fork) she had to starve herself to death.

Unless things have drastically changed since I was young, having MS is also very expensive. In 2005 constant dollars my mother’s 1974 medical care cost was about $166,000. Since healthcare costs have risen much faster than inflation over that period I can only believe that would be much higher today.

Impoverishing victims of expensive and debilitating diseases with frivolous lawsuits is reprehensible behavior to say the least.

Hell bent on suing the people they should be wooing

Mashboxx chairman Wayne Rosso is smitten with the people who run the RIAA. He says basically, they’re good guys, fun to be with and very supportive.

I don’t doubt Rosso believes that. But I have to ask myself why, if Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman, the RIAA’s two main men, and oft-quoted spokesmen and women such as Jenni Engebretsen and Jonathan Lamy are such fundamentally decent people, they haven’t quit the RIAA long ago?

They’re all highly intelligent, highly skilled, highly qualified people and one would think they’d have little trouble finding equally rewarding (in all senses) positions elsewhere.

Because as things stand, they and other RIAA employees are fashioning and directing what can only be described as bloody minded, vicious and ongoing attacks on helpless, not to say innocent, American men, women and children. And there’s no way these RIAA employees can be unaware of what’s happening.

Through emails and phone calls, I’ve come to know a few of the RAA victims and the lawyers who act for them and they’re all exactly what they seem to be – very ordinary, genuinely decent people. There’s not a thief among them and you’d think the huge, enormously powerful, Big Four record labels would be wooing them instead of suing them.

Not that Bainwol, et al, are alone. The sue ‘em all campaign is world-wide and RIAA clones and cohorts in Europe, Asia and elsewhere, are doing exactly the same thing.

A purely technical argument

In the US, among the victims are Patti Santangelo, who remains firm in her decision to fight Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG; RaeJ Schwartz, the woman who’s battling multiple sclerosis as well as the RIAA, and another disabled mother, Tanya Andersen, who’s taken the attack to the labels as she sues them under the RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) Act.

But at this moment in time, the attention is on RaeJ because, as her lawyer, Ray Beckerman, points out in Recording Industry vs The People, “The RIAA has made a request for a premotion conference in Elektra v Schwartz, indicating that it intends to make a motion to dismiss Ms Schwartz’s counterclaim for attorneys fees, on the ground that a copyright defendant’s claim for attorneys fees cannot be expressed as a counterclaim.”

This is the RIAA using a purely technical argument to make life even more impossible for a woman who’s already under unbelievable stress because of a chronic, life-threatening illness.

She has multiple sclerosis and there’s no doubt in my mind the RIAA is making this terrible medical condition far worse.

Like so many Big Four victims, RaeJ had, and has, no idea how to share a music file, and the RIAA knows this full well. But it’s a way to get to her daughter, the real target of the RIAA’s owners, the Big Four Organized Music cartel members, all of whom have been caught red-handed at bribery and price fixing, and all of whom have for decades been robbing the customers and artists (who’ve made them so very, very rich) blind.

They say they’re being “devastated” because “criminals” and “thieves” such as RaeJ have been “massively” distributing copyrighted digital music files online. However, nothing has been stolen, no money has changed hands and its’ never been shown by the labels or anyone else that files shared equal sales lost.

As far as money is concerned, the revenues regularly and routinely pulled down by the Big Four would easily support several under-developed countries.

If they’re having sales problems, they’re wholly of the labels’ own making: bad product, bad business decisions, bad management, terrible pricing and their mindless refusal to see the people who’ve developed the p2p technologies they’re fighting as friends and potential collaborators; and consumers as responsible people, not hard core crooks.

‘A mere formality’

But back to Mrs Schwartz, for some obscure reason the RIAA is deathly afraid.

In Elektra v Schwartz, it’s desperately trying to shoot down RaeJ’s counterclaim for attorneys’ fees. Do the RIAA’s masters fear the financial consequences now and down the road? Or is it something else?

Although it would have you believe differently, the RIAA is by no mean on top of things and one of its more highly publicized defeats involved Paul Wilkes whose lawyer, Daliah Saper, said the labels were, “bound to mistakenly bring cases against innocent individuals with their drift net litigation tactics”.

And in the Schwartz counterclaim, an ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen brief exhibit, Capitol v Foster, also tags the RIAA’s “driftnet” tactics.

Ray Beckerman, RaeJ’s lawyer, had both asked the RIAA to drop the case because of her failing health, and offered to withdraw his client’s counterclaim if the RIAA lawyers could simply back up their claim that the counterclaim for attorneys fees wasn’t allowable.

“I wouldn’t want to get into motion practice over a mere formality,” said Beckerman. “We’ll let you know,” said the RIAA. And that was the end of that.

It’s almost as if the RIAA is saying, ‘OK, she has MS. But that does not let her off the heinous crime of sharing music.’

A crime in its own right

But RaeJ isn’t alone. Far from it. An estimated 20,000 or so men and women, and even very young children, are being victimized under the warped RIAA sue ‘em all marketing plan.

When the RIAA decided Patti Santangelo would probably make a good mark, they went for her with both barrels. But she wasn’t having any, so when they couldn’t cow her, they turned on two of her children.

Tanya Andersen, a mother whose sole income is from a medical disability pension, is also being harried from pillar to post by the RIAA. But like Patti, she’s refusing to give in and currently has a case under way against the labels under the RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization) Act.

One frequently reads about Class Actions, something the Big Four’s Sony BMG is only too familiar with, and wonders why the victims haven’t gotten together to launch an action against the RIAA, the people who work for it and their employers. And why aren’t other corporate parties involved in these cases also being singled out?

Tanya Andersen is pointing the way, as is David Greubel, a Texas father who says the the $115 million Sharman paid to join the corporate entertaimment fraternity constitutes recovery in full for “injuries allegedly caused by Defendant Greubel, among others”.

These days, class actions are technically difficult and very expensive to bring, I’m told. And the same applies to directly suing the likes of Sharman Networks which owns Kazaa, the p2p application which is named time after time in the RIAA cases, and whose Australian owner is now part of the corporate music scene.

But the times, they are a-changing. The RIAA, and others of its ilk, are losing the war, and in the process, building up a huge reservoir of ill-will against their masters that even the ever-faithful mainstream media can no longer ignore; creating non-stop PR for file sharing, the very thing the Big Four want to defeat; and, best of all, from the point of view of indie music, giving birth to a whole new class of consumer who’s doing everything he or she can to avoid buying anything which smacks even slightly of the Big Four labels.

Follow p2pnet on Twitter …

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

___________________

• p2pnet RIAA Special, 8 p2pnet RIAA poll: final results http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35045
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 7 RIAA vs Kylee hits the mainstream http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35043
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 6 Take a hike, students tell RIAA http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35040
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 5. Us, Them, p2p and file sharing  http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35028
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 4. P2p file sharing contained: RIAA http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35024
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 3. Big Music university shill report http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35022
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 2. The ‘We’re Not Taking Any More’ club http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35016
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 1. File sharing, p2p criminals http://www.p2pnet.net/story/34990

February, 2010

I’m re-publishing a number of p2pnet stories highlighting RIAA depredations against Big 4 customers. And lest we forget: it’s easy to see these crimes against ordinary people, including young children, as being perpetrated by faceless corporations.

However, highly intelligent, highly educated men and women such as Jay Berman, Hilary Rosen, Cary Sherman, Amy Weiss, Jenny Engebretsen, Cara Duckworth and Jonathan Lamy, all of whom have been, or still are, dedicated RIAA troopers, have been knowingly and deliberately using the mainstream media to people they knew full well were innocent to public ridicule and embarrassment accusing them, without a shred of evidence, of being “massive online distributors of copyrighted music”.

I believe some 40,000 people were victimised in this way.

Only two ultimately reached the US civil court system, but the primary objective had been achieved:

* Create a climate of terror under which to operate a bizarre marketing campaign.

Remember: all of these atrocities — because that’s exactly what they are — were carried out in the names of artists the labels have under contract, and “rights holders”, ie, the major labels, or one of more of their scores of subsidiaries.

Thanks and Cheers!

Jon Newton – p2pnet

___________________________

p2pnet.net news:- The multi-million-dollar campaign, launched by Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA to compel American online music lovers to abandon independent download sites in favour of those backed and supplied by the Big 4, is a failure.

“Have the RIAA sue ‘em all lawsuits persuaded you to stop sharing?” – p2pnet asked in an online poll, which we believe is the first of its kind.

NO !!!, shouted 1,013 of the 1,077 responses.

Millions of file sharing “criminals” with Net accounts, some of them very young children, are causing “devastation” and terrible hardships to the Big 4 and their contracted artists and industry workers at all levels, says the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), and similar Big 4 units around the world.

Branding file sharers as thieves, the RIAA, BPI (British Phonographic Industry), IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) , CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America), and so on, assert files shared or swapped equal sales lost and, therefore, drastic steps must be taken to preserve their masters’ bottom lines.

But, “Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates,” said Felix Oberholzer and Koleman Strumpf in their 2004 The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis. This year, they said:

statistically indistinguishable from zero. Our estimates are inconsistent with claims that file sharing is the primary reason for the decline in music sales during our study period.

Every now and then ‘independent’ shotgun surveys commissioned directly by the labels, or outfits close to them, emerge. They aim to prove Big 4 efforts to turn online music lovers away from the burgeoning independent sites and services, and free p2p networks, into the arms of the skeletal corporate download businesses, are having significant effects.

Many commissioned polls are at pains to make the point they’re ‘randomised’. That’s to say, the pollsters have no way of knowing who they’re talking to, if any of their respondents have any direct (or otherwise) interest and/or knowledge of the matter at hand, or even if the answers reflect reality based on actual experience. Yet, these surveys are always quoted as being representative and accurate.

I decided to run a poll asking readers, and people who landed on the survey from directly relevant links on other sites, what they thought of the RIAA sue ‘em all campaign. I also asked if they believed a number of statements made by the RIAA, using direct quotes from the RIAA sites to pose the questions.

I included a box with the questions based on RIAA statements so respondents could add their own observations. The replies are included with the raw data, which I’m making available for free under a Creative Commons license 3.0. They’re in a compressed zip file and can be used in an Access database. The zip also includes a Visual FoxPro version, and a text version for Excel, although the long “comment” fields will be lost when importing the data into Excel.

Below are the main results from the Sultans of Spin survey. If you use and of it, we’d appreciate a note with a link.

For now, according to the RIAA, “Each sale by a pirate [or file shared] represents a lost legitimate sale, thereby depriving not only the record company of profits, but also the artist, producer, songwriter, publisher, retailer ….” In other words, the Big 4 want the world to believe a person who bought a counterfeit disc or downloaded music would otherwise have bought a Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG CD and that their failure to do so represents billions of dollars in actual and genuine losses. The assertion is patently ridiculous and yet it’s repeated over and over in the mainstream media without question.

Says one comment:

The RIAA, “Works to build a positive environment in which to create and distribute,” says another claim, which evinced:.

A third RIAA declaration says, “Technology initiatives of record companies and policy initiatives coordinated by the RIAA are working toward a seamless, interconnected world for music fans.” Says a respondent:

A “seamless, interconnected world” would mean that, once a person pays for a song, they would have the right AND ability to convert that song into any format(s) they choose, and store/play it on any equipment they choose, now and in the future. whereever and whenever they like, as often as they like, without ever paying for it again. THAT world is the antithesis of what record companies want… if it were up to them, all music would be rented for a single playback, and we’d have to pay up each and every time we listened, and we could never have more than one copy at a given time unless we coughed up more dough.

Number of accesses: 3,860
Number of responses: 1,108

Do you share files online?
Total Responses: 1,080
Yes – 69.1% (746)
No – 30.9% (334)

Have the RIAA sue ‘em all lawsuits persuaded you to stop sharing?
Total Responses: 1,077
Yes – 5.9% (64)
No – 94.1% (1,013)

How do you rate your chances of you becoming an RIAA victim?
Total Responses: 1,078
Guaranteed, if I keep on sharing – 1.9% (20)
High – 2.5% (27)
Medium – 10.5% (113)
Low – 50.4% (543)
Zero, even if I keep on sharing – 34.8% (375)

It’s been said the likelihood of any on person becoming an RIAA victim is like becoming a Lotto millionaire, or being struck by lightning.
Total Responses: 1,081
Agree – 69.3% (749)
Disagree – 30.7% (332)

The RIAA claims file sharing is “devastating” the music industry.
Total Responses: 1,081
Agree – 9.3% (100)
Disagree – 90.7% (981)

The RIAA claims file sharing is causing tremendous hardship to music industry workers, and huge losses to contracted artists.
Total Responses: 1,082
Agree – 7.4% (80)
Disagree – 92.6% (1,002)

Does your school give you instruction on IP (Intellectual Property) law?
Total Responses: 1,036
Yes – 18.2% (189)
No – 81.8% (847)

If it doesn’t, do you think it should?
Total Responses: 1,016
Yes – 39.7% (403)
No – 60.3% (613)

Do you know anyone who’s received an RIAA subpoena?
Total Responses: 1,078
Yes – 8.3% (90)
No – 91.7% (988)

Says the RIAA: Though it would appear that record companies are still making their money and that artists are still getting rich, these impressions are mere fallacies.
Total Responses: 1,076
True – 11.4% (123)
False – 88.6% (953)

Says the RIAA: Each sale by a pirate [or file shared - our insertion] represents a lost legitimate sale, thereby depriving not only the record company of profits, but also the artist, producer, songwriter, publisher, retailer, … and the list goes on.
Total Responses: 1,078
True – 11.0% (119)
False – 89.0% (959)

Says the RIAA: To artists, “copyright” means the chance to hone their craft, experiment, create, and thrive. It is a vital right, and over the centuries artists, such as John Milton, William Hogarth, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens, have fought to preserve that right.
Total Responses: 1,046
True – 35.7% (373)
False – 64.3% (673)

Says the RIAA: Everything that the RIAA is active on – fostering a viable music marketplace online, preventing piracy, fighting censorship – is based on one premise: It all starts with the music and the music starts with the artist.”
Total Responses: 1,046
True – 16.5% (173)
False – 83.5% (873)

The RIAA: Supports the First Amendment rights of artists.
Total Responses: 1,021
True – 21.3% (217)
False – 78.7% (804)

The RIAA: Fights to preserve freedom of speech.
Total Responses: 1,032
True – 9.7% (100)
False – 88.5% (913)

The RIAA: Works to build a positive environment in which to create and distribute music.
Total Responses: 1,038
True – 5.0% (52)
False – 95.0% (986)

The RIAA says: RIAA leader Mitch Bainwol has, “helped revitalize a coalition of music organizations that now often work together on variety of industry issues, such as anti-piracy strategies or advocating a level playing field for digital music distribution models”.
Total Responses: 992
True – 20.2% (200)
False – 79.8% (792)

The RIAA says: Bainwol has, “strengthened artist relations and devised programs to promote and recognize emerging digital formats”.
Total Responses: 998
True – 12.3% (123)
False – 87.7% (875)

Says the RIAA: On behalf of its member companies, the RIAA works to protect the value of music.
Total Responses: 1,023
True – 15.1% (154)
False – 84.9% (869)

Says the RIAA: Technology initiatives of record companies and policy initiatives coordinated by the RIAA are working toward a seamless, interconnected world for music fans.
Total Responses: 1,015
True – 6.5% (66)
False – 93.5% (949)

Click here for the raw data, available for free under a Creative Commons license 3.0. If you use this, we’d appreciate a note saying where and how.

How valid are these results? Not very, said one well-known online personality who’s generally sympathetic to the plight of corporate victims. He stated:

I think of it as very flawed as a survey, and as something that will be trivial to discredit. I, too, have an intuitive belief that P2P lawsuits aren’t scaring off file-sharers, but I’m not willing to declare this to be true based on a survey of the kind of people who have self-indentified as activists who also want this to be true.

The majority of file-sharers have no political consciousness; don’t read [his blog] or P2PNet, haven’t heard of Slashdot. The people the RIAA want to scare can’t be reached by putting a poll on your blog. They can only be reached through the kind of credible, randomized sampling techniques employed by real opinion survey outfits.

I believe this person, whose views I normally respect, is wrong on all counts.

Eric Garland runs Big Champagne, one of the most respected media measurement companies with a special interest in peer-to-peer statistics. he told me:

We’re not in the survey business ourselves, as you know Jon. On the contrary, we focus solely on what people do (not what they say they do) and what we can observe directly because, as you’ve quoted me saying previously, we just don’t see that surveys in this area (online media, P2P, up/downloading habits) are empirically reliable.

Nonetheless, people love web polls and they are enormously popular/entertaining. People love to debate them endlessly and they always will. If you want your poll taken very seriously by those on all sides of the debate, I suppose you’re best off hiring one of the Big Names in survey work to conduct it – even if you do, I’ll take pot shots at the result, because, as I say I am wary of the answers regardless of who’s asking the questions.

Cheers! And thanks to everyone who took part. And all the best ….

Jon Newton – p2pnet

Follow p2pnet on Twitter …

….. and identi.ca

___________________

• p2pnet RIAA Special, 7 RIAA vs Kylee hits the mainstream http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35043
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 6 Take a hike, students tell RIAA http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35040
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 5. Us, Them, p2p and file sharing  http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35028
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 4. P2p file sharing contained: RIAA http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35024
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 3. Big Music university shill report http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35022
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 2. The ‘We’re Not Taking Any More’ club http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35016
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 1. File sharing, p2p criminals http://www.p2pnet.net/story/34990

February, 2010

I’m re-publishing a number of p2pnet stories highlighting RIAA depredations against Big 4 customers. And lest we forget: it’s easy to see these crimes against ordinary people, including young children, as being perpetrated by faceless corporations.

However, highly intelligent, highly educated men and women such as Jay Berman, Hilary Rosen, Cary Sherman, Amy Weiss, Jenny Engebretsen, Cara Duckworth and Jonathan Lamy, all of whom have been, or still are, dedicated RIAA troopers, have been knowingly and deliberately using the mainstream media to people they knew full well were innocent to public ridicule and embarrassment accusing them, without a shred of evidence, of being “massive online distributors of copyrighted music”.

I believe some 40,000 people were victimised in this way.

Only two ultimately reached the US civil court system, but the primary objective had been achieved:

* Create a climate of terror under which to operate a bizarre marketing campaign.

Remember: all of these atrocities — because that’s exactly what they are — were carried out in the names of artists the labels have under contract, and “rights holders”, ie, the major labels, or one of more of their scores of subsidiaries.

Thanks and Cheers!

Jon Newton – p2pnet

p2pnet news view |  Kids & Kartels:- The mainstream media are beginning to pick up on the Kylee Andersen travesty.

That’s Kylee the Kopyright Kriminal on the right. You can tell just from looking at her that she’s out to do ill to Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG.

Having accused her mother, Tanya, of being an illicit online music distributor, the Big 4 music cartel wanted their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) lawyers to grill 10-year-old Kylee. Face-to-face.

Was the idea to try to get information from her so they could use it against her mother? Or are they going to claim Kylee herself is another of those “massive online distributors of copyrighted music” who are, according to the multi-billion-dollar Big 4, “devastating” the corporate music industry?

After all, Kylee was seven when the RIAA first zeroed in on her mother, who’s disabled and who gets by on a pension. And as every online criminal and thief knows, seven is the perfect age to start as an illegal music distributor.

Judge Donald Ashmanskas partially spiked the RIAA’s guns, ruling it can speak with Kylee, but at her home, and by telephone only.

But even that’s a farce. The RIAA shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Kylee, by phone or by any other means.

In USA Today’s Tech Space, “The RIAA is now attempting to depose 10-year-olds,” notes Angela Gunn, going on:

Seriously, the music industry wants to put a ten-year-old girl under oath to be grilled by lawyers. Most of us would be creeped out at the thought of our favorite ten-year-olds spending grownup-type time with their favorite music stars, much less with those stars’ lawyers – are we comfortable as a society with the thought of some piece of juris doctor interrogating little girls? Isn’t that, like, a Dateline NBC special in the making?

The Kylee case is bad, but it’s nothing new. Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG have been using their RIAA-like units trampling on the rights of their own customers in North America and abroad for years. And we let them get away with it, somehow forgetting we don’t depend on them, they depend on us.

“This has been going on now for two and a half years and has turned my life upside down,” Tanya Andersen told me recently. “It continues to be a huge source of stress and chaos in my life. I certainly don’t feel like a free human being at this point because it just continues to go on and on–it doesn’t seem to matter what proof I give them or what questions I’ve answered for them.”

It’s almost the end of March, designated Boycott the RIAA month. So how about extending that into April? And then May? And then …..

There’s a ton of excellent and affordable non-corporate music online.

You don’t need the Big 4 for that.

JN

Also See:
Kylee Andersen travesty – RIAA vs Kylee Andersen, 10, March 27, 2007
partially spiked – RIAA loses in Kylee case, March 27, 2007
Tech Space – They’re coming for your kids, March 27, 2007
Boycott the RIAA month – It’s March. So Boycott the RIAA!, March 27, 2007

Follow p2pnet on Twitter …

..… and identi.ca

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

___________________

• p2pnet RIAA Special, 6 Take a hike, students tell RIAA http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35040
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 5. Us, Them, p2p and file sharing  http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35028
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 4. P2p file sharing contained: RIAA http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35024
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 3. Big Music university shill report http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35022
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 2. The ‘We’re Not Taking Any More’ club http://www.p2pnet.net/story/35016
• p2pnet RIAA Special, 1. File sharing, p2p criminals http://www.p2pnet.net/story/34990

February, 2010