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But with those scant resources, they’re able to make big statements. Consider the "Save Betamax" project they organized last month, where they rallied more than 7000 people to call their congressional representatives and urge them to oppose the Induce Act. (The name comes from the fact that the Induce Act would effectively overturn Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., the 1984 Supreme Court case — known as the "Betamax" decision — which held that VCRs were legal because they had "substantial non-infringing uses" that did not violate copyright law.) It’s hard to tell whether the call-in day was at all responsible for sticking the Induce Act in neutral. But it’s clear that in just one year, Downhill Battle has proven it can do more than mere talk.

"Efficacy-wise, I’ve found that they’ve been a really great complement to the traditional activism stuff that EFF does," says Ren Bucholz, activism coordinator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The kind of media attention that sprung up around Grey Tuesday, and the kind of public awareness they’ve been able to harness for the Induce Act, I think that’s something that’s real and will have an effect in the future. Absolutely, they’re a tangible part of this fight."

And they have fun with it. Take a project like "3 Notes and Runnin’," which was launched last month in conjunction with Brooklyn musician Michael Bell Smith. It further explores issues of sampling and restrictive copyright laws, and, true to Downhill Battle’s ethos of creation and participation, it does so via an interactive public. Last month, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that musicians must clear and pay for any sample of copyrighted music, no matter how small. At issue was a screeching guitar lick, just seconds long, from Funkadelic’s 1975 "Get Off Your Ass & Jam." In 1990, N.W.A. sampled the three-note riff in their song "100 Miles and Runnin’ "; buried under layers of beats and a maelstrom of noise, it’s all but unrecognizable. Still, the Sixth Circuit found the group liable for copyright infringement — a landmark departure from years of precedent. So Bell Smith and Downhill Battle decided to hold a contest, in defiance of the ruling, that would show just how many ways a snatch of music could be manipulated. The call went out to creative folk, and the response was immense. The sheer variety of the 160 or so 30-second entries — from lush, impressionistic atmospherics to jarring slice ’n’ dice to a woozy version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" — shows just how infinitely malleable a piece of music can be, and demonstrates the kind of creativity laws like these can stifle.

"There’s a very broad and frightening movement taking place that’s expanding copyright and related means of locking down ideas, images, inventions," says American University’s Gottlieb. "Cultural artifacts that exist are being locked up in such a way that they’re not going to be available for tinkering. Taking someone else’s work, taking it apart, putting it back together again in new ways — whether these are ideas or bits of music or software — these days is being looked upon as a crime. It should be looked upon as an essential part of innovation and invention. That’s how culture is built."

The software projects that Nassar and other Downhill Battle collaborators are working on offer yet more artillery for this fight: free, open-source programs that "one way or another, help us win." One is a template that allows people to type in their zip codes and, with minimal effort, zip off a letter to the editor of any or all of their local papers. Another, still in development, is an adaptation of the BitTorrent file-sharing technology that would allow blog users to host large multimedia files on their home pages. Still another enables users to set up "Defense Funds" via PayPal. Downhill Battle currently uses it for the Peer-to-Peer Legal Defense Fund it’s established (www.downhillbattle.org/defense), which has so far raised nearly $5000 to help defray the costs of the RIAA’s lawsuits against file-sharers.

SO, CAN this really happen? Can these Worcesterites effect change this far-reaching? One afternoon, Wilson, Reville, and Cheng drive out to a sprawling 18th-century farmhouse on the outskirts of town. It’s here that their friends silkscreen their T-shirts — HOME TAPING IS KILLING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY — AND IT’S FUN, reads one — and it’s where they go to hang out and drink beer. The house, a communal living space, is rambling and ramshackle, with a riot of art and gewgaws choking the walls, and a barn filled to the rafters with kitschy hipster detritus. It’s a very cool place — but it’s also separate, in a way, from the hard realities of the world outside.

Cheng, who went to Cooper Union, in New York City, and taught school in Philadelphia, says Downhill Battle couldn’t have happened anywhere but Worcester, which retains a fierce sense of identity. And its close-knit scene has "no poseurs, no projected identities." Of course, it’s also cheap to live there. And its relative isolation affords them the ability to be "more objective ... to not be reactive, the time to develop ideas," Cheng says. "Our work intersects with our lives."

That, perhaps, is the best thing Downhill Battle has going for it. "When we started, we really never thought we’d be in it for this long," says Reville. "We thought we would do a few months, try to get the word out there, and introduce a new perspective." More than a year later, the group continues to grow. They’ll soon be launching a chapter in Canada — where file-sharing is still legal — in an effort to "gather our troops" and counter the anti-P2P storm brewing there. Satellite Downhill Battle stations may also start cropping up throughout the US. The mission is evolving, too. "The four of us are sort of starting to split into two projects right now," says Reville. "One being music activism, the other more general, like how does the Internet get people engaged in politics?"

Those are big plans. But remember, says EFF’s Bucholz, "four people doing this doesn’t sound like too many. But then you consider that MoveOn.org was started by two people, and even today they have very few people on staff for an organization with as big a megaphone as they have. And I think Downhill Battle has a huge advantage, because they’re on the right side."

Plus, "they’re so smart," says Gottlieb. "They’re really talking about creative processes, and how they can do it their own way, through the whole DIY movement, which is pretty cool. They’re at the forefront of youth electronic activism, and I’m delighted to say that they’re also part of something that’s broader than youth."

These are important times, and Downhill Battle sees itself as made for them. "We talk about it sometimes as [if] there’s two roads we can take. There’s the war road, and the peaceful road," Reville says. "The war road is the escalation of their tactics: harsher and harsher, trying to suppress and beat down the millions of Americans who use file-sharing software every day. On the other side, the technology is racing to make it more private and more decentralized, and easier for people to share music. When you’re fighting people or organizations, you maybe have a chance to win. But when you’re fighting technology, you tend to lose. That’s the fight that they’re putting up now. We’re going to be putting up the public opposition to that, while the technology battle rages on."

Visit Downhill Battle at www.downhillbattle.org. Mike Miliard can be reached at mmiliard[a]phx.com