Petition: Stop the RIAA from suing thousands of fans!

[TehBorken]

 [h3]Petition: Stop the RIAA from suing thousands of fans!         [/h3] EFF's gotten 73,000 of the 100,000 signatures it's seeking for a petition on the recording industry's insane campaign of suing thousands of music fans. 17,000 more to go! [blockquote]The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is on a rampage, launching legal attacks against average Americans from coast to coast. After over 18,000 lawsuits and counting against P2P users, file sharing has continued to increase rapidly. Meanwhile, music fans, like 12 year-old Brittany LaHara, college student Cassi Hunt, and parent of five Cecilia Gonzalez, are being forced to pay thousands of dollars they do not have to settle RIAA-member lawsuits, and many other innocent individuals are being caught in the crossfire. This irrational crusade is not generating a single penny for the artists that the RIAA claims to protect. The RIAA should be working to create a rational, legal means by which its customers can take advantage of file sharing technology and pay a fair price for the music they love. With artists increasingly turning against the lawsuits, momentum may be shifting in favor of a better way forward. [/p] Copyright law shouldn't make criminals out of more than 60 million Americans — tell Congress that it's time to stop the madness! [/p]We have 73044 signatures so far - this is amazing! If we can get 100,000 signatures, we will deliver the petition to the Senate and House Commerce and Judiciary Commitees. [/p][/blockquote]  [a href="vny!://www.eff.org/share/petition/"]Link[/a]  

[Trollio]

I support copyright laws to protect artists' ability to profit from their work, but the RIAA is one of those entities in life that sidles up to you and says, "I support your interests. Let me defend your interests for you. I will collect monies on your behalf and then give you 10%. See, I am defending your interests."
 
 Artists deserve to be compensated for their work. Even 12 year-olds need to learn and understand that. But the problem here is that the money we're talking about is "industry money", not artists' money. Artist development should not depend upon the luck-based will of a coked-out, tone-deaf moron in an Armani suit. That's how Hollywood churns out a catalog of films that consists of about 98% utterly insipid garbage.
 
 Sorry, but I do not care if the Chinese black market steals millions of dollars from the makers of Monster-in-Law or Wedding Crashers. Those millions were wasted anyway by people who had millions to waste in the first place, on the investment in and creation of excrement.
   

[Trollio]

Oh, by the way, did I mention that I'm probably the biggest film snob on Earth?