my personal friend's parents were one of the 261 victims of the riaa. here's his rant about the whole thing. when will the record industry get it? when something like the chicago sountrack cd is only 2$ less than the chicago dvd... you think suing your customers will make them want the cd more?


-----Original Message-----
From: Laurent Piol
Subject: RIAA SUBPOENA BULLSHIT


Greetings Everyone,

As a few of you have known or may have read in newspapers and over the Internet, RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has launched "SUE 'EM ALL" campaign in which people who use such music trading programs called Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster, etc. etc. will be sued for the copy right infringement [censored]. Last Monday the 8th of September, the RIAA started subpoenaing those who were basically supplying music to others to download off of the trading programs. In the whole USA, 261 subpoenas were sent out to those who had over 1000 files and such in their programs to share. Of 261 subpoenas, 24 were sent to LA county. Of those 24, 1 was sent to my parent's residence. They are being subpoenaed cause of people downloading from our computer. The funny part is that we've stopped using Kazaa for quite some time now ever since it had been announced that RIAA would sue whoever was still using it. But the problem was that every time anyone turned on the computer, KAZAA automatically popped up. My brother and I were in Huntington Beach and didn't realize this. And that's how this whole misbegotten mess began.

Now, the reason for my e-mail is not only to warn all you KAZAA users that it CAN happen to any of us, but also to ask for your help. I am angry! I am truly angry! I am angry that these RIAA people could actually stoop so low as to go off and sue anyone and everyone. Just lately, a 12 year old girl had to settle with RIAA and paid a sum of $2000 dollars. There will be many more like her. And then there are us folk who just didn't even know it was going on until we realized we were being sued?no warning no nothing. My parents are a mess, my brother is stressed to hell, and I'm just plain ANGRY! I am not going to stand for this! I may have downloaded music, but I've also bought the CDs of the artist that I really like?and there just aren't many of those now a days. One good song and the rest of their damned CD sucks! Plus these CDs are like 16-20 bucks a pop. And how much of that actually does go to the artist? About 2 cents from what I've heard. They should do more concerts anyways! But if their suffering, imagine the people who they'll be sueing. We could be sued for as much as "$150,000 for each song downloaded." As if they don't have enough money, they are going to take what little money we have! And the worst part about this is that these are my PARENTS! Any loving child would sympathize with me when it comes to your parents. It weren't even responsible for any of this. But to the RIAA, they don't care, as long as they get your money and [censored] you over!!!!! If I or my family are to go down, I am going to take those assholes down with me. I know this is a lot of wishful thinking, but I am going to do what I can do. What am I asking? I ask that we stand against these pigs and hit them where it hurts! No mass murders or anything?.just stop buying their CDs. Stop supporting their campaign against us normal people. I just can't let them do this to me and my family. If you guys can help me with that, it would be great. I mean I've never been a real political person or so defiant as to send out such an e-mail. But what I am is angry! And my blood is boiling. They call this place the land of the free, and for the longest time I believed it. But now, it's become the land of the greed and I'm not gonna stand around and let another family go down as my family may. And whether this works or not, at least I tried.

So to end, I ask that you pray for myself and my family and hopefully this does all blow over and maybe I'm mistaken about this whole ordeal. But if not, I've got a tough road to face and will need your support to make it through. If anyone has any information or even knows of anyone or any lawyers than can help us out, please let me know. I have here a link to BOYCOTT-RIAA which better explains their cause of boycotting RIAA. It helped open my eyes to all of this. Here also is the article in which my parents were interviewed about the RIAA and the subpoena http://www.nbc4.tv/entertainment/2466052/detail.html .

Thanks for listening and for all the help. If you like, please forward a shorter version to others and maybe I stand a chance in making some sort of a difference. But regardless, thanks for your time.

LP