Death to the RIAA

A bold statement from Brainwashed and they want your help.

Among their beefs with the RIAA are: attacks on ‘fair use’ of music (meaning that you can’t copy music you bought for yourself), suing fans, DRM ‘protection’ technology that makes computers vulnerable to any virus, the ongoing payola scandles and unfair pricing practices.

You could also add to that their contempt for the consumer that this all adds up to, how none of their settlement money squeezed out of the plaintiffs from lawsuits goes to artists, their continued work on new DRM technology (that will surely be safe, right?), the label’s long-term contracts with artists (that Courtney Love tried to fight at one time) and the disgusting lack of health insurance for musicians under contract (what other profession allows this?).

If you agree, you might want to sign the Brainwashed petition. Who knows? If they get enough signatures, maybe the RIAA would make some kind of token PR move to make themselves look better. Personally, I’d love to see anti-RIAA ads like the Truth campaign they have for the tobacco companies to publicly embarrass them.

If all of this isn’t enough to get you mad, savor this recent headline:

RIAA Says Ripping CDs to Your iPod is NOT Fair Use. If they get the courts to agree with them, I wonder what that will do to I-Pod sales…?

In any case, if anyone is printing “Screw the RIAA” t-shirts, I’d like to order a dozen for myself and for early holiday presents.