* Important * - Copyright Awareness & Protection

Written by Dan from the CILM forum:

This is titled.. "It Starts With Us!" because it does...

Where does copyright awareness and protection start? - It starts with us.
Where does the stopping of illegal shares start? - It starts with us
Where does black balling people, groups and sites that share illegal work start? - It starts with us
Where do people turn to find out what is right and what is wrong in the way of tubes and such? - It starts with us
Who can stop this from happening? - It starts with us
Who can make a group or person stop this? - It starts with us.
What do we need to do?
Band together with all licensing companies, Do not just report an incident to them and leave it at that. That doesn't work, people ignore their emails and threats knowing that a lawsuit and prosecution will cost them too much. But it costs us more. More money to do something we love. We may even lose artists over it.
Leave a group you know is violating copyright terms.
Inform your other groups about it.
Let the company have a black list and respect it and not bitch at them because they have it.
Yes sometimes you may have to leave a group of friends you have been with for a while but that is the price that has to be paid to protect your interests. Would you stay with a group you know are committing other crimes? No I don't think you would.
The time is now for us as a user community to stand as one and say "WE WILL NOT PUT UP WITH YOUR ILLEGAL SHARING ANY MORE".
No bitching about company A is better than company B. They all have GREAT artists and we all want those artists to stay around. We are a large group and now is the time for us to be heard. The ones illegally sharing stuff will bitch. So, let's speak louder and firmly against this. No idle threats or harassment, just true action to leave groups and not take tags or such from people we know do this.

THE TIME IS NOW!!!!!!!

We need to be the educators and protectors. Let's work with the companies, not against them.

I know I will!

Will you?