With all of the RIAA hoohah, it might make sense to find out where your money is going before you purchase any shiny new CDs. No one in their right mind wants to support an association that would have the audacity to attempt to sue half the country because they shared some music. If you want to make absolutely sure that your next new music purchase is not going to go to the hands that will sue you, visit the RIAA
Radar Search Engine to find out whether or not the RIAA had a hand in the creation of the album you want. If the album is RIAA fodder, I would highly suggest purchasing it used from Half.com or Amazon.com to avoid feeding the fat cats.

TechTV was kind enough to round up the first list of Kazaa aliases who will be hunted down and prosecuted in their witch hunt. Any of the aliases look familiar to you? Are you one of the “chosen” few? Know someone who is on the list? Just generally pissed off about the matter?

If you are any of the above, feel free to sound off here. I’d love to hear more of what people are thinking about this whole debacle.

I want to know why the RIAA and the record companies aren’t getting the bejeesus sued or beaten out of them for price fixing. Certain music stores, like Virgin Records, are selling CDs for pennies less than the price of CDs after they were first introduced. Maybe that’s why they’re suffering and on the brink of going under?

Seriously now, the CD has been around in the neighborhood of 20 years. Why should I be paying upwards of $16 for a new cd? Didn’t other major companies like Nintendo and even Microsoft at some point get sued for price fixing? The economy has changed, the value of goods has changed in the past 20 years, technology has changed to allow for faster and higher quality mass production of these items… why should I be paying such an antiquated price for an album that might not even be over 30 minutes long. Furthermore, only pennies (that’s right.. PENNIES) are actually getting to the artist. All of the rest of my $16 is going to record executives, agents, lawyers, and a laundry list of middle men and lackeys.

Now if you want to get into the quality issue, this is a whole different can of worms. Think about the last ten CDs you bought. Can you honestly say that you enjoyed even 80% of the tracks on those CDs? Did you buy a CD (or maybe even a few) for maybe two or three songs? Maybe you even had to pay for the entire CD just to get one song because it wasn’t released as a single? We have all been there and it sucks. I know not every album can be stellar, but why has it become so difficult to find an album that has more than one good track on it? Actually the answer is simple. If every artist only puts one or two purchase-worthy songs on each album and fills up the rest of the disc with the stuff that should be on the cutting room floor and flashy “multimedia enhancements” then the record company can charge a higher price for the disc and get the artist to turn out a new album every 12 to 18 months. Have you noticed that the only artists that aren’t trapped in this factory formula are established artists with creative control, artists on independent labels, and a lucky few that get mentored by established artists?

Now if more of those artists that aren’t under the proverbial thumb of the record industry brass would speak out about all of this RIAA induced hysteria, maybe we could get somewhere.

If the RIAA has their way, everyone caught sharing music online will be fined to hell and back. If certain political factions have their way, file traders will be jailed.

Having established that, did these factions ever stop to think that if you put a bunch of file swappers in jail and fine the rest to oblivion, there will be no one left to buy music? Seriously. Who in their right mind, after having been fined or spent time in the slammer because of sharing music is ever going to give their money to the music industry again? I wouldn’t. Hell I’m not even buying new cds now because of this RIAA induced brouhaha. Furthermore, after having been sued and put through the ringer by
the RIAA’s legal mob, why would you ever give any of your money to the music industry?

Music sales were lackluster at best before the RIAA waged war against everyone in their way. File trading was blamed for the sluggish music sales in the past two years. Did anyone stop to think that maybe the quality of the music being released is pathetic? Who needs another friggin’ Ashanti album for $18.98? Furthermore, did the music-warmongers forget that the whole economy is crappy right now? I think the Bush Administration’s blind-eye/deaf-ear policy is rubbing off on other groups across the country. What do you think?

If you have been living under a rock you probably haven’t heard the great news. The RIAA is going to go after individual file swappers! All of you guys who are sharing gigs and gigs of songs on Kazaa and Morpheus, watch out! The RIAA is going from the top down (most data shared/transferred) and going to sue the top file swappers on the most popular file swapping networks.

I think this is going to worsen the already dreadful public image of the RIAA. Their current tactics have been likened to the strong-arm tactics of the mafia. Personally, I’m less scared of an angry CAPO than the RIAA’s legal team. With the growing public disgust with the RIAA, how do you think their new barrage of law suits is going to effect music sales? I know a lot of people are planning to boycott. Are you?