I keep wondering two things, why does the RIAA continue to persecute people, and more importantly why do people do stupid enough things to keep getting prosecuted?

That organization exists for the sole purpose of suing the pants off of people, but they can only do so when people leave plenty of evidence about their activity – namely hosting content on their computers and allowing others to download it. Most of the time it seems these foolish people aren’t even aware that what they are doing by running Kazaa, eMule, Gnutella, or some other file sharing application puts them at risk.

But why in the world would anyone share their music, movie or software collections via open, anonymous connections? Especially when there are other virtually risk-free alternatives? (By the way, know your rights if RIAA comes calling.)
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The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger! Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!).

This issue needs immediate support or the future of free radio is in jeopardy. According to Pandora founder Tim Westergren:

The survival of Pandora and all of Internet radio is in jeopardy because of a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. The new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays and broadcast radio doesn’t pay these at all. Left unchanged, these new royalties will kill every Internet radio site, including Pandora.

At this point there are only a few weeks left to protect the future of Internet based radio stations. Even if you don’t listen to them currently you should be very, very concerned because these stations are how you’ll listen in the future – and that is exactly what the media giants are trying to prevent! Read on and I’ll explain…
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