US Postal Service sueing anyone with active email!

[Darksaber J]

I heard this on radio yesterday. It isn't a direct quote but as close as I can remember. READ IT ALL so you are not misinformed and accused of spreading a lie or rumor!!!!!!

"The US Postal Service is sueing anyone they can who has an active email account. They say it is taking away from their profits and caused a huge decline in postal use since the invention. At the current rate of postage they are loosing tons of money every year and have filed to attempt to regain some of their losses. One of their first "victims" is a 7 year old girl who has been using email to communicate with her father in Iraq.
The USPS claims that email is a form of peer to peer file sharing and they are taking steps to outlaw all email clients. If this fails to work they are said to be creating "e-stamps" that will be bought and attached with email letters."

Does this anger you? It should!

This was a HOAX news story created to make the point about what the RIAA is doing and the fact that it is WRONG.

Email has CLEARLY taken a huge chunk out of the Postal Service's revenue for years, but if they were to attempt any action you would clearly see how absurd it would be.

I think the point is that P2P networking is much like email. It's here, it's getting more widespread, and anyone affected should adjust because it isn't going away and everyone can't possibly be sued. It was such a clever hoax that it did make it's point with me and I would hope that it would get around...especially the point. RIAA needs to back off.

Thanks for taking time to read this. I felt it was pretty important and very demonstrative of a very valid point.

[Zuljin]

Originally posted by MasterOfGravity
why the hell are they starting with this bull now if this is the case?
the email service is like......many years old.
this is in this case a very stupid way to suddenly get some cash

Umm....did you bother to read it all?

[MasterOfGravity]

Wohoo..I read it and I got it all wrong

[trelimb]

That's pretty clever. It makes it's point too because I actually ALMOST believed that something that stupid could be happening.

[((KvN))]

Nice one, and thank god it was a hoax. I woulda slapped someone. just....kidding...

[Cyberxion]

Y'know, I find the RIAA's actions to be quite asinine. Look, you can tape a song off the radio and give it to a freind. Noone's going to do a damn thing about that. There's hardly any difference between that and sharing said music over a P2P program, yet they somehow think it's stealing money out of thier pockets! Are they actually going to remove tape players from radios next, so as to take away our ability to tape thier songs and trade them if we so choose? Not likely, which is why this whole thing is stupid.
And hey, a guy sent a really good point in to a morning show on the issue. He said "Arists complain about our downloading of thier music as stealing thier hard earend money. But arent' they stealing thier fans hard earned money everytime they lip sync at a concert?" I happen to agree, as it's been found that alot of artists these days attempt to justify lip synching by saying that it allows them to put on a better show, and that they couldn't sing as well. I think it's stupid, as people pay to hear them sing live, not to dance around like idiots. If they do not sing, then we might as well have just watched thier music video on MTV rather then pay good money to see what basically amounts to jack-shit. So maybe when they stop ripping thier fans off, they'll have a decent argument about thier songs being downloaded....

[J]

That is a fair point you bring. P2P is not going to dissapear anytime soon. The RIAA would have to sue... 200 million users that are in and outside of the US?

That postal service thing almost got me, but thank whatever it was just a hoax. But it is a fair comparison. What if it really happened?

[Hangman]

http://bbspot.com/News/2003/10/usps.html

Check out there for a really entertaining look on this.

And on the RIAA subject - I doubt a single bit of money from the lawsuits will go to recording artists.

[Drageuth]

Originally posted by Cyberxion
Y'know, I find the RIAA's actions to be quite asinine. Look, you can tape a song off the radio and give it to a freind. Noone's going to do a damn thing about that. There's hardly any difference between that and sharing said music over a P2P program, yet they somehow think it's stealing money out of thier pockets! Are they actually going to remove tape players from radios next, so as to take away our ability to tape thier songs and trade them if we so choose? Not likely, which is why this whole thing is stupid.

The difference there is that when you tape something from the radio you can only tape as much as the radio has, and you can't get entire CDs. Then again, you could record the entire CD onto a cassette nowadays, so bleh...

Also, while it's a pretty neat idea for the USPS thing, there's only one problem with it: while they may be losing loads of money because of email users, we can't yet send packages via the computer. Those we have to do with our own time and money. And some people actually like getting letters in the mail - it feels better than getting an email, because it lets people know that they care.

[sharp]

Y'know, you should put that it's a hoax before you put the announcement in. I just told everyone here what happened, and looked like an idiot in the process.

[Drageuth]

Originally posted by sharp
Y'know, you should put that it's a hoax before you put the announcement in. I just told everyone here what happened, and looked like an idiot in the process.

Y'know, you should read something through before you start talking about it.

[neogeomad]

Not bad using the postal service as a metaphor. Shows just how stupid the RIAA's actions are

[trelimb]

Originally posted by Kushiel
The difference there is that when you tape something from the radio you can only tape as much as the radio has, and you can't get entire CDs. Then again, you could record the entire CD onto a cassette nowadays, so bleh...

Actually, there's a radio station around here that will play the whole cd sometimes. They played lateralis all the way through right when it came out. Since the radio stations suck a lot here I'm sure we aren't the only ones with such a station. I also heard that when the White Album came out there was a (could be more than one but I don't know) station that played that all the way through (and it's a double). Not only that, they did it before the album hit stores! This is possible because radio stations always get music before it's available to buy.

[artist088]

Originally posted by sharp
Y'know, you should put that it's a hoax before you put the announcement in. I just told everyone here what happened, and looked like an idiot in the process.

dude, he said right at the beginning 2 read it all the way thru first. :eyeball:
but also, many libraries like the 1 i go 2 have cds. all u have 2 do is go and get them 4 free, burn a copy, and then return it. how come renting them like that isn't illegal?

[Darksaber J]

Originally posted by artist088
dude, he said right at the beginning 2 read it all the way thru first. :eyeball:
but also, many libraries like the 1 i go 2 have cds. all u have 2 do is go and get them 4 free, burn a copy, and then return it. how come renting them like that isn't illegal?

*Cough*she...
But that's a good point too. I know libraries that do that. Doesn't cost anything to "check them out". I also knew there was a radio station in California that plays whole CDs when they're new...BEFORE they are even released.
And I am also enjoying a good laugh at the ones who didn't read this through as I stated right at the beginning. If I had told you it was a hoax from the start it would not have had the impact intended. And when I heard it on the radio they didn't tell that it was a hoax either until the end. (If you're wondering what station this was on, it was on 97.3 FM out of Gainesville Florida. It's a talk radio station and the hosts were "Chip and PC". This was about Wednesday I think...give or take a day. Of course you probably don't really give a rip where it came from so I will stop now)
I am glad you all took time to read it and you all make very good points. Thank you for keeping it reletively civil.