Christmas Showdown

THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON could be a defining moment for the music industry. Everyone will be paying close attention to whether the major record labels have succeeded in boosting sales with their vicious campaign of subpoenas and lawsuits. Actually, even calling them lawsuits is being generous since it’s clear at this point that virtually none of these cases will ever go to court. Threats and extortion is probably more accurate– how would you describe a situation where someone has to pay $3,000 immediately or risk losing their home and life savings?

Anyway, last time we were at the mall (handing out boycott flyers, of course) we noticed that the DVD aisles of Best Buy were packed with people. So were the video games aisles, computers, electronics, and just about everything else…except CDs. It actually was pretty remarkable and rather satisfying to see the CD section almost completely abandoned. Needless to say, Downhill Battle is going to be launching some campaigns for the holiday season to help people to do the right thing by continuing to not buy major label music. Besides, you know the last thing their kids want this year is CDs, so it’s a service to parents as well as the public good.

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Jon Newton and Bill Evans have launched the new site that we mentioned last week: the International Music Industry Reform Association, IMIRA.org. Bill Evans previously founded boycott-RIAA.com and with this new site he’s pointing to the need for positive change in the industry as well as work to break the current RIAA monopoly.

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New flyer from Ad-kress exposes the corporate music industry’s central fallacy: buying major label CDs is good for music and musicians. In fact, buying major label music is the only way to ensure that the music industry continues to exploit musicians and erode the public domain.