New Front Opens in Downloading War

Music bootleggers came together today to announce the start of a new campaign to stop file-sharing software. Said one leading bootlegger of Illinois, "things were great when we were the only people who could afford to make copies of music, now every kid with a phone line and a bag of blank CDs is a frickin congressional library. Its frickin' ruining us." The organisation, Bootleggers Against Peer-to-Peer Software (BAPS) is also campaigning for a high tax on CD-Rs and copy protection on new CDs. The head of the campaign, John Baptiste, stated, "we'll be able to bypass the tax, obviously, so its a win-win for us and the federal government." He also reminded the government that bootlegging used to bring in tax revenues through sales of printer ink and also generated some US$15 million in carboot sale fees. "This is all nearly being wiped out by kids not paying anything to anybody," he stated.

BAPS have previously asked to join the RIAA in their campaign, but at present there has been no formal agreement between the two campaigns.