How to kill the RIAA

JD Lasica has a post up about OurMedia, a grassroots media organization.

We are in the midst of the greatest boon in grassroots creativity in ages. Tools once available only to a professional elite are now being taken up by everyday citizens. Just as weblogs let millions of people become part of "the media," so too are new tools empowering individuals to create video, audio, playlists and other works of personal media and to share them with a global audience. The personal media revolution is turning multimedia. Digital stories, video diaries, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads, music videos, fan films, Flash animations, student films – all kinds of short multimedia works have begun to flower. Alas, the most compelling ones are scattered across the Web or hidden away on thousands of PCs, laptops and closed networks. These works deserve a wider audience. That's what Ourmedia is all about: Create. Share. Get noticed.

I feel that the key to crafting a proper balance between the rights of creators and consumers in the new digital environment is heavily dependant on those two entities being more closely linked and removing the middlemen, whose role will dramatically change in the new environment. The sooner we can get the record companies out of being the middlemen, the sooner we will be able to build fair rules that work for everyone. I don't know if this particular organization will be huge or not, but something like it is going to change all the rules. (via Instapundit)