[strela]

"Forget about it, dude -- even genocidal litigation can't stop file sharers," said Wayne Rosso, president of Grokster, one of several systems that allow users to upload and download files -- many of which are unauthorized MP3 copies of songs published by the RIAA's member companies.

Keep whistling past the graveyard, friend. And hide your assets well, because you might very well be living in a refrigerator box under a bridge somewhere when RIAA gets through with you.

RIAA has the perfect right to protect their member's intellectual property. Good for them and bad for those thieves out there who think they have some sort of Constitutional "right" to listen to and trade free music without paying for it.

[visualops]

Don't refer to copyright infringement as theft, it isn't.
The material isn't being "stolen", it's being copied without recompense.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

RIAA has the perfect right to protect their member's intellectual property. Good for them and bad for those thieves out there who think they have some sort of Constitutional "right" to listen to and trade free music without paying for it.

As one of the RIAA's clients once said, "The times they are a'changin'."

The current recording industry model made sense and worked in the days when the means of production and distribution of recorded music required a large investment of capital, technical expertise and access to marketing channels. In those days, the recording industry provided an indispensible service to their clients and to their customers, and they deserved their profits.

Technology has changed.

Anybody with a PC, studio software, a sound card and a website can record, mix, publish and distribute music.

The recording industry no longer provides an indispensible service to their clients and to their customers.

Quite the contrary, the RIAA wants all technological innovation to cease so they can continue to collect royalties on other people's work, while cheating the artists out of everything they possibly can at every step of the process.

The RIAA wants all computer hardware crippled so that PCs are nothing more than copyright protection appliances.

If all the RIAA wanted was to collect royalties from downloaders, I would not give a rat's ass.

But that's not what they want. They want to force me to accept crippled technology so they can continue to exploit an anachronstic business model.

Screw them. I don't even listen to music anymore, but I download MP3s whenever the RIAA starts squawking about going after people.

I download them and never listen to them.

Come and get me, you creeps.

[Principled]

If people were selling music they'd purchased, I'd be against them - they'd be earning $ from another's works. But they aren't selling music - they're giving it away.

So Schwinn comes to your door one day with a few bicycle cops and says, "Say, did you let your little girl ride your bike yesterday? We surveilled this area and saw it. We're going to sue your ass off. You can't let someone else use your bike! They have to buy their own!"

Just doesn't quite add up.

[TheStickman]

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

The RIAA doesn't *protect their intellectual property*. How many songs has the RIAA written? What a farce!!!

The RIAA is only upset cuz people aren't buying the garbage they are trying to force down the public's throat AND their monopoly on distribution has been ruined by the internet. Btw, calling someone a thief for downloading music from the internet is an error of fact. But semantics aside, as someone who's been in the music biz for a long while now...I'm GLAD my music is being downloaded because it gives millions more people an opportunity to hear my work and I get more DIRECT sales (yes, RIAA fans, that's sales WITHOUT dealing with you and your slavers....errr contracts) which means I get to keep the $$ made from MY work instead of only getting a percentage.

The RIAA is fast becoming the UN of the music world:irrelevqant!

[Paul C. Jesup]

Keep whistling past the graveyard, friend. And hide your assets well, because you might very well be living in a refrigerator box under a bridge somewhere when RIAA gets through with you.

Two words: Bankrupcy protection.

The RIAA might learn the hard way that you cannot squeeze water from a rock.

[rwfromkansas]

The RIAA idiots aren't even going after the downloaders, just the sharers.

Until they do, folks like me will not be scared off from downloading.