Damion Chaplin
03-20-2007, 08:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback176.html' target='_blank'>http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback176.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"This might be hard to believe, but once the RIAA was one of the music industry’s good guys. It was formed to promulgate technical standards. Many LPs in my library from the 1950s and ’60s refer to “the RIAA curve,” an equalization curve intended to make sure your phono cartridge delivers what the recording engineer intended you to hear. The RIAA’s degeneration into a corporate bully is both sad and self-defeating. Warring against consumers has not reversed declining CD sales or replaced eroding revenues with legal downloads. It has merely turned off a new generation of consumers, possibly forever... So I’m not buying any major-label product this month. Oh, I’m still buying CDs, but I’m exercising my passion for music by purchasing stuff from independent labels. This is but one of the tactics suggested by the good people at Gizmodo in their Boycott the RIAA in March campaign... And following is a more comprehensive list of suggestions. They fall into two basic categories: circumvention and alternatives. In other words, you may work around the boycott to get the stuff you want. Or you may go further, making longterm changes in your music-loving habits and extending the boycott indefinitely."</i><br /><br />Some of you may recall that <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11816">Gizmodo has declared March to be Boycott the RIAA month</a>. Well, DigitalTrends has cooked up a very good list of 12 ways to show the RIAA exactly what you think of them, while still enjoying all that the music scene has to offer. They're all mostly common-sense, and many of them circumvent paying the RIAA by buying items that the RIAA already got paid for, but hey, you can't have everything. I have an additional suggestion: If you favorite band releases on one of the Big Four labels (and they likely do), write them and tell them you have stopped buying thei albums because you can't abide giving money to their label. It may not work, but if enough people tell them the same thing, they may in fact consider changing. And of course, they never will if you don't speak up. So head on over to DigitalTrends and check out Mark's list. And then at least consider who it is you're really giving your money to.