More on the RIAA

Tech blog Gizmodo (who was nice enough to link to Banddot awhile back) has declared March "Boycott the RIAA Month":

The RIAA has the power to shift public policy and to alter the direction of technology and the Internet for one reason and one reason alone: it's totally loaded. Without their millions of dollars to throw at lawyers, the RIAA is toothless. They get their money from us, the consumers, and if we don't like the way they're behaving, we can let them know with our wallets.

The only people that profit from the RIAA are the lawyers and the RIAA executives. Here's an example of their latest abuse of power from RAIN:

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has announced its decision on Internet radio royalty rates, rejecting all of the arguments made by Webcasters and instead adopting the "per play" rate proposal put forth by SoundExchange(a digital music fee collection body created by the RIAA).

Radio Paradise is one of the many internet radio stations that can't afford to pay the fees that the RIAA want. Their view is at SaveOurInternetRadio.com:

There has been much discussion about how unfair these rates are, but our listeners find one fact particularly apalling: while Internet stations like ours are being told they must pay royalty fees that exceed their income, sometimes by several times over, FM stations - including those owned by media conglomerates like Clear Channel - pay nothing at all!

Yes, both FM stations and Internet stations pay royalties to songwriters and/or music publishers. But the royalties in question are owed to the owners of performance copyrights, which means, in most cases, record companies - and to them, FM stations pay nothing at all.

How do you know for sure whether an album was released by an RIAA member? Check out RIAA Radar. Just look up the album you want on Amazon.com and use the RIAA Radar bookmarklet to cross-reference the information, or use their mobile UPC lookup on your phone when you're at the store. Or you could just buy from local artists. RIAA Radar also has a list of indie music so you can find good non-RIAA bands, label info, and other good stuff.

From Radio Paradise again:

What can you do? Sign our online petition and open letter to the US Congress. Then please send an email message to your Congressmembers. You can use our suggested text, change it, or write your own message. We then suggest that you print your email (you'll get a copy) and mail it to your Representative and Senators and, if possible, call their offices. You can look up their addresses and phone numbers here.