This post is directed at players located in the United States. Undoubtedly
you've heard of at least SOME of the things the RIAA has been doing lately.
Specifically, they've been filing hundreds of lawsuits against users of P2P
programs in an attempt to stifle "theft" of copyrighted work. However, the
methods they are using to accomplish this are more than just a bit slanted.
First, they are able, by use of the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act),
to obtain personal information about individuals, as well as issue a subpeona.
They are not required to go through a judge to obtain either a warrant, or the
subpeona, in order to both obtain the information, and to serve you. This in
itself should be illegal, and is very frightening that all they need to obtain
these items is a claim that you have violated their copyright. Second, with
these lawsuits the RIAA is helping themselves, and only themselves. Not a
single penny of the money collected by these suits has gone, or will go, to
the artists that they claim to protect. Third, the RIAA is targetting a select
group of people, and of course, are very careful not to file suit against
anyone in either political or judicial power. They are using their pockets to
lobby against P2P systems, NOT just music swapping. They have failed in this
attempt before, however, even with precident, they may not in the future. They
have also started a campaign to try and associate P2P filesharing with child
pornography and other illigitimate uses. It is my recommendation that if you
disagree with any or all of these actions, please sign the petition with the
EFF to help stop the RIAA's practices against the consumer. The URL follows
this post, along with serveral others in case your are interested in reading
for yourselves what the RIAA has done.

Petition: http://www.eff.org/share/petition/
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/
Electronic Frontier Foundation: www.eff.org/
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,96797,00.html
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V123/N38/38riaa.38n.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/technology/07PORN.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&pos
ition=

-Hackop
Hackop huggles his .sig warmly.


+/- Hackop