Senate bill bans P2P networks (News.com)

Senate bill bans P2P networks (News.com)

Posted Jun 28, 2004 15:50 UTC (Mon) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435)
In reply to: Senate bill bans P2P networks (News.com) by ccchips
Parent article: Senate bill bans P2P networks (News.com)

> I cannot understand why people who are so well-versed in the world of Free
> software, as yourselves, don't understand or agree with my point, which is
> that we, as leaders in the movement toward freedom, should encourage others
> to move *away* from RIAA-backed and prohibitive entities, and favor
> entities which are not prohibitive.

I don't think I saw anyone disagree with this point... I think it's probably
futile and unlikely to actually cause anyone to stop listening to RIAA music,
but there's certainly nothing wrong with trying... (It's the same sort of
situation with trying to convince most people to use open source rather
than Microsoft's software... Most people just aren't going to be convinced,
no matter WHAT you say or do... But, that doesn't mean you should stop
trying either...)

> I sincerely believe that such efforts will help to quell the political
> movement that appears to want to ban P2P networks and copying.

Now, THIS I think many people might disagree with... I think you're just
wrong about this... If lots of people moved away from RIAA artists, and it
really started hurting them, then they'd probably get even MORE rabid and
determined in the pursuit of such evil laws... After all, they'd have
demonstrably proven negative effects on their business now... (Whereas, if
it's THEIR music being copied, there's really NO negative effect on their
business... Despite their rabid claims to the contrary... Most studies
have shown that, if anything, music sharing INCREASES their CD sales...)
And, if there's even ONE copy of ONE of their songs floating around somewhere
out there, they'd be able to blame it all on the evil Internet pirates, and
still convince the law-makers that they've bought and paid for to come up
with more draconian laws... Indeed, many people have said that the REAL
reason the RIAA wants to eliminate P2P now is for precisely this reason:
they're worried that such easy access to so much music will cause people to
migrate to independent bands, and cause more bands to want to go independent,
and then the RIAA will lose all of their control... I think this theory is
probably exactly right... They're not worried about losing money from any
'piracy'; as has been shown, they AREN'T losing any money because of it...
They're worried about losing their grip on artists, and their complete
control over the entire music industry... And, rightfully so; they're on
the verge of becoming completely and totally obsolete...

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