I might be taking a considerable liberty by posting the item below and if I am, I apologise. But I thought you might want to know.
It appeared originally on p2pnet and it would, of course, be great if you’d complete it. 
Cheers! Jon
__________________________________
We’d like to hijack you for a couple of minutes to complete an extended poll run by David Lessard on a2f2a.com, a site recently started by music fans and musicians to put the two communities together to their mutual advantage.
‘Start your own revolution!” is its slogan. “Cut out the middleman!” Actually it should have been ‘middlemen’. And you know who they are.
Just being on a2f2a.com “means being part of the solution, and while it may seem intractable at times, we’ve kept a civil discussion going for several months, which is an accomplishment in itself,” said David, summing up the results of his survey.
“It shows a commitment to the issue and that we all do want to find solutions.”
He went on, “One step in that is to form a consensus on a statement, so that we have a position going forward into more public venues and can join the larger debate as a group.
“Since there was so much good discussion in this thread about possible statements but no way to find out if we had a consensus, I created a survey to get some hard numbers on the issue.”
You’ll find the results here.
Now it’s your turn.
If you’re reading this, it’s a pretty sure bet you’re among those who believe musicians should be paid for their work, and fans actively want to help make that happen.
As I write this, with the UK as the focal point, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures are at the end of the line, betting everything they have they can regain control of ‘consumers’ through ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
If it’s ever formulated as law around the world, “every man, woman and child on the planet will in one stroke lose their freedom of speech to fall under the thrall of companies and politicians who answer only to one small feral group, corporate shareholders,” I said here.
On top of that, musicians will continue to be totally dominated by the corporate music industry, as they’ve been for decades.
At the moment, all the running is being made by the cartels and musicians who side with them. But for the first time in history, thanks to the net, the people now have a voice and we want to get them into the discussion.
Now it’s time to show the entertainment cartels, and their bought-and-paid-for politicians, we, and not they, are in charge.
A consensus statement is vital and data from across the board is needed to create it.
Please take the time to complete it, and please tell everyone you know on every forum and site you visit to do the same.
January 14th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
FYI
@ 4:17 PM Pacific, we’d received 81 responses, mostly from professional musicians which is, to me, interesting in and of itself.
Cheers!
January 14th, 2010 at 11:24 pm
@Jon,
So if people already voted in the original pol, they shouldn’t vote in this one?
January 15th, 2010 at 6:52 am
@ Monkey. Nope. They cam vote in this one too.
Cheers!
January 15th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
I took the poll, but I can’t escape how “pointed” it really does come across as (even if it is pointed in favour of my own thoughts
)
In order to be “fair”, the appropriate ideas have to be properly separated, with no rhetoric, and a proper “yes/undecided/no”-type of opinion must be possible on each one, or you’ve got nothing.
That way, you get some sense of balance, even if the source material seems “lopsided”.
My 2 cents.
January 15th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
@ DA: Should we ignore it, then?
Cheers!
January 15th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
@Jon
If I could make one sugestion for future polls, if any are planned…
When using caps they sould be used consistently. i.e. the use of caps for “DENOUNCE” and not for “support.” Such inconsistency does lend a form of bias in the reading. That being said, I DENOUNCE 3-strikes and ACTA. But I’m sure there are folks on the support side that feel just as strongly. Perhaps the use of words in caps should be elliminated.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
@ Bill: There was lots wrong with it, as we’re finding out. But as a straw poll (I hadn’t known there was such a thing
) it’s fine. It’ll serve its purpose, and then some. I was impressed by how many musicians took part — I was expecting it to be the other way around — which was interesting in and of itself. And we can always do a better, more ‘professional’ version later, if we want.
For now, SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS. heh
Cheers!
January 15th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
how many people have taken this poll? would you want us to post it around?
January 15th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
@ Indy: 138 completions out of 383 views.
Yes please – post it around. The plan at this point is to wind it up next Thursday (January 21)>
Thanks and Cheers!
January 15th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
I agree on the caps. They were put there to show where two otherwise identical statements were different. Will just make them more consistent next time.
January 18th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Why are there so many requests for personal information? Do you really need to know my income level, education, and family status?
January 18th, 2010 at 9:32 am
@ SteelWolf “Why are there so many requests” …
To get an idea of what kind of people we are. Nothing else. The replies won’t be re-sold to Google or the labels. Promise. In fact, they won’t go beyond a2f2a.com / p2pnet, and they’re completely anonymous. And of course, you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to answer.
Cheers!