OSS developers as a whole can fight back by lobbying projects to add license exceptions against certain corporations. Viewing riaa.com, let's start with jQuery, WordPress and bootstrap.
In any case, RIAA already has a license to use the existing software. That license can't be unilaterally withdrawn, unless RIAA violates terms of the license that invalidates it. New versions of the software can be released with the new license, but RIAA can continue to use the older version with the original license.
And, as other people have pointed out, this would create a software license that is "non-free", and therefore incompatible with other open-source licenses, causing all sorts of headaches with software distributions, and any other software that has a dependency on the software.
This is not a good path to take, even if it sounds appealing.
Revenge is also often not the right response to a bad action, it can escalate where the opposite effect may be desirable.
Let's try other stuff and continue to allow RIAA to use our tools, they even may evolve for the better in the future and that would be great, no?
Although I'd note they're not really interested in having the musician get paid. Mainly just members of the RIAA.
Now - I have some sympathy for that view - I'd also like to get paid, and while I think the RIAA has little real value in the world, some of it's members certainly are working on the marketing and promotion front.
That said, I use many of these downloading services to save conference talks from youtube. So they're attacking a service I use legally for a useful purpose. At some point, ethically, I start to lose ANY sympathy for them as an organization.
Basically - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNS7IqmZBbA&has_verified=1
And it is not about revenge. It is about enforcing the spirit of those open source licenses. WordPress uses GPL to force users to contribute to open source.
Do you think the RIAA contributes? Instead they actively attack it.
Do you think the RIAA can evolve for the better? It has an explicit mandate to restrict copyrights. Its existence opposes the software they use.
True, sadly it is unfeasible. It is a nice fantasy.
No it doesn't. Users can modify the source and refuse to share it. Sharing only applies if one distributes the code.
Using 'force' was perhaps too strong.
The OSI open source definition (and the Debian Free Software Guidelines that it was adapted from) specifically prohibit discrimination against Persons, Groups or Fields of Endeavor.
I totally get the idea of boycott. But the definition of freeness says that if you do that, you are no longer free.
More interesting perhaps would be a restriction on using the software on a device that implements DRM. Then wait for the software to end up on RIAA member servers or hardware products and enforce the license.
IIRC there was a row on Debian many years ago that dealt with some license derivation that prohibited use in weapons research and construction...
What about this: GPL is supported by the FSF. Add a term which allows license use as long as no other projects explicitly supported by the FSF are attacked. (For some definition of attacked, supported,...)
Everything remains open, yet the FSF/OSI gets ways to fight back against egregorious takedowns.
Even just terms revoking the youtube-dl license the RIAA has (because you can bet one of them has used it), would be a step forward.