$12,000 per person registration fee (was RE: Eat this RIAA)

Thu Aug 22 03:19:59 UTC 2002

On Wed, 21 Aug 2002, Nigel Clarke wrote:
> However, this type of action might not be necessary at all.
>
> Some of the users on this list think RIAA's recent actions are nothing more
> than empty threats.
> Why doesn't NANOG make a few of its own?
>
> A "polite" letter from a NANOG representative should do the trick.

The RIAA's annual budget is roughly $18 million.  That pays for lawyers
and other stuff which goes into writing "polite" letters. To raise that
much money Merit would need to charge about $12,000 per person per NANOG
meeting.  People complain the current $300 registration fee is too much.

NANOG is not a lobbying organization.  There are other several
organizations (and mailing lists) you may want to consider instead, such
as the Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org/  You can also
write your elected representatives for the price of a postage stamp.  Some
congress critters even accept e-mail now.