http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/0 ... index.html
The above is an article on CNN regarding the RIAA’s recent decision to target the ISP’s reported with the largest libraries of "stolen" music. The legal challenges are going to be many, and they are going to come from us.
This year, we’re going to celebrate independance day in style. We’re going to be striking a blow against a corporate hierarchy that has grown so fat on it’s own profits as to become completely out of touch with the reality of the music industry.
We have a simple premise. Musicians don’t need multi-million dollar mansions to compose. Companies don’t need multi-billion dollar profit margins to continue producing. And consumers don’t need to keep paying 20 dollars for mediocrity stored on 95 cent wafers of plastic.
Human knowledge belongs to the world.
On Thursday, July 3rd - from Midnight of the 3rd until Midnight of the 4th - we call for the concerned music consumers of the world to protest with the only voice we have left - the internet. Let’s overload the servers of every P2P service on the planet. If they are going to sue us for trading music, fine - let them sue ALL of us. They want multi-million dollar battles, they’ve got it.
This message must get out as far and as fast as possible. Feel free to copy and paste the body of this text into your email program and forward it. Feel free to post it on any message boards of relevance you may post on. In particular, we're interested in the music, hacking, and political forums.
When we see equity in production, distribution, and availability of music... when we see a sharp rise in quality, and/or a steady drop in price... when we see CEOs not raking in million dollar bonuses off outlandishly overpriced products... when we see music conglomerates earning realistic wages from realistically priced products... then we’ll talk. Until then... let this be OUR Independance Day.