For far too long now the big record labels that comprise the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have abused their customers and their suppliers, the musicians. They charge too much money for product, and provide a lot of crap in return. And not nearly enough of that money gets back to the poeple who created the content that makes the business possible. Now a group of podcasters are trying to organize an effort to show that the RIAA is obsolete and unnecessary. Mark Yoshimoto Nemkoff of Pacific Coast Hellway created Bum Rush the Charts. The idea is to pick one band that has made their music podsafe (available to podcasters to use on their shows free of charge), and get as many people as possible to buy one particular song on one day to try and drive the song to the top of the iTunes chart, ahead of all the stuff that the RIAA is putting out.

The band that was chosen is Black Lab and their song Mine Again. Chrisopher Penn of the Financial Aid Podcast has set up a special iTunes affiliate account and all the commissions from purchases through that link will go to the Student Loan Network iTunes account. Black Lab has also committed half of any money they make to the fund as well. So for $.99 you tell the RIAA that they can take a hike, get a great song and contribute to help some kids education. All of this is going to happen on Thursday March 22, 2007.  I’ll add the appropriate link here on Thursday morning so make sure you come back to this post then and buy the song.  thanks