href="http://news.com.com/Conservatives+back+Hollywood/2100-1032_3-5548781.html?part=rss=5548781=news.1032.20">It's
back.
Movie studios and record labels' Supreme Court fight against
file swapping draws unlikely bedfellows.
These people MUST BE STOPPED. Not only is this bonehead stupid legislation
that would technically criminalize PCs and iPods, but it's against the best
interests of the people backing it.
There are studies upon studies showing that at worst there's no correlation
between file sharing and record sales, and at best files sharing actually
helps studios by exposing new listeners to music they wouldn't have heard
and subsequently bought otherwise. The RIAA and other groups are fighting
with all they have to kill the goose laying the golden eggs, and they'll
suffer as much as everyone else if they succeed.
When Josh and I finally get Solo Media off the ground (technical
difficulties and I'm going to be spending most of next week at 30,000
feet), we're offering our issues in Fictionwise's Multiformat editions,
completely sans encryption. We're also releasing them under a
href="http://www.creativecommons.org">Creative Commons license that
allows and even encourages derivative works as long as they're
noncommercial and share alike (basically, we want to see fan fiction set in
our stories). Why are we doing this? To encourage new people to see what
we're doing and jump on board. If an issue gets emailed to a few friends
who like it and decide to subscribe for a year (at year of issues for the
low, low price of $5.00), I come out ahead. Word of mouth marketing is the
most effective on Earth. Why would I try to stop it?
The RIAA is trying to put a bullet in their own head. It's our duty to save
them from themselves.