How to Boycott the RIAA
I am very opinionated when it comes to DRM and music. I think the RIAA (Recording Industry of America) makes the stupidest business decisions on behalf of the artists it is supposed to represent. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is just bad business. Real pirates (people who copy and sell music as a business) aren’t slowed down at all by DRM. They can just buy non-DRM CDs in stores, or use simple techniques to circumvent DRM. Yet honest paying consumers are greatly inconvenienced by only being able to play downloaded music on specific MP3 players and such.
I’ve thought about joining the growing number of people wanting to boycott the RIAA. Just totally avoid buying any record represented by them, and possibly even purging my collection of RIAA music altogether. It would be painful, especially considering this would mean not listening to some of my favorite artists.
The biggest problem, however, is in determining what music is from the RIAA and what is not. But I just discovered RIAA Radar , which seems to be a site that allows you to look up albums and get an answer. So far, a lot of my favorites appear to be RIAA, but some do not. I think I could probably do OK if I tried this. I could re-subscribe to Emusic, which is a DRM-free download site that I used many years ago. It is pretty much the only site with legal downloads that work on iPods, other than iTunes itself. And they have tons of indy bands, which is what I like anyway.
Has anyone else tried a RIAA boycott? Be interesting to get a group of people together and try it for 6 months or so, and exchange experiences.