The RIAA.
written by Ronin - septenber 23 - 2003
Our nation is changing.
That much is unavoidable. We’ve seen a large shift in our infrastructure in the past two years. We’ve come to understand as a nation that not all things are peachy keen in our world. But perhaps one of the main things that has been suppressed quite a bit is the terrorist threat in our nation. We all know that the possibilities of terrorist attack still exist. I’m here to let you know that our nation has been subject to terrorist subversives since the late 90’s. And the current political landscape has allowed them to do as they please, to an extent of which our civil liberties are being flushed down the drain as we speak.
I’m talking of the most firmly entrenched terrorist cell in North America - The Recording Industry Association of America, the RIAA.
I’m sure you’ve caught glimpses of the issues at hand on the nightly news…no? I’m not surprised, news outlets are under huge pressure to suppress what the Senate passes in regard to file sharing and our digital rights. In fact, the RIAA and MPAA lobbyists have their hands in deeper than most people know. Did you know incoming freshmen all across the nation will have to adhere to new regulations making file-sharing punishable by expulsion? But never fear, for the RIAA is nothing if not fair. Low and behold, they’ve provided ‘selected’ downloads for the students at affordable prices! How nice of them to fleece the poor and appropriate their tastes at the same time! And it doesn’t end there, there’s already plans in the works to gather "information on available or planned technologies that might include such tools as traffic auditing; bandwidth shaping; file blocking, screening, and filtering; and network performance analysis," Anyone else want to shit on my Amendment rights while these guys are at it.
This kind of affront to me as an American is ridiculous. And it never would have happened five years ago. But all these government types got very serious about national security, and these devilish lobbyists saw their chance and dove right in with their sob story about how insecure file sharing is and that it would be so very easy from out technical infrastructure to come under attack through them. Oh, yeah, and there’s a bunch of large pirating rings being led by some 12 year olds that we’re having trouble with, but you scratch our back, yada yada yada.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that fundamentally, piracy is wrong. But the RIAA and MPAA both have been approached by companies who would like to get in on a paying P2P structure at the ground floor. The RIAA largely ignores these propositions and continues to output more and more cash on lawyers, lawsuits, and class action suits. And more likely than not, it’s these expenses they are attributing to the financial losses they say they’ve been experiencing in the past few years. (Despite reports that record sales we actually up an average of 12% last year) Not to mention the fact that RIAA subpoena fees are set to drive up Internet Service Provider fees inside of the next six months.
The lobbyists and short sighted corporate money divers who are running this circus know that if they let the American public find out just how badly they’re being screwed over, (and all in the name of being able to spend another weekend in Aspen, you know, just the bare essentials) they’d get crushed by popular opinion. Their positions and their power all depend on being able to pull strings behind the scenes.
Our last best hope is to educate ourselves against those who don’t give a goddamn about our individual rights.
Read up on the issues, get involved. Because this whole debate is about more than just our right to download music and movies. The RIAA and their shortsighted lobbyists have opened up a Pandora’s box of moral and ethical issues. And if we the people allow ourselves to just sit idly by while they pervert and rape our rights as citizens, then who’s to say what other large conglomerate companies will decide they can do? The government itself has already decided it’s more profitable to bend the rules as they see fit to match the issue of the day. Don’t think that it will get better on it’s own, because it’s already getting worse as we sit here. And if you’ve read Orwell’s ‘1984’, then you have an idea of where all this business is headed. If not, I suggest you pick up a copy and find out why it is so imperative that we guard our own rights with our lives.
Get your start towards regaining your god given right as an American by checking out www.boycott-riaa.com right now.
The revolution is not being televised.
- Ronin
Ronin@progressiveboink.com