Stop the RIAA

[RickJ]

I don't like having to pay extra for consumer electronics so that DRM can  be added to protect some else's interests.   I don't like anyone telling me when, where, or how I llisten to music I plegally purchased.  I don't like my "fair use rights" under copyright llaw bein eroded.   Don't encourage the scoundrels by purchasing DRM'd devices or music.  Please take a look at the Electronic Frontier Foundation's petition in the link below.  If you agree with it please sign and submit it. 

http://www.eff.org/share/petition/

Here is a video of a guy ralking about one of the RIAA infamous lawsuits that you may also be interested in.
Video - Rant Against RIAA

Here is the blog of the attourney who represents Mrs. Swartz and a number of others.
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/

[Nikolas]

Hold on a sec.

first of all couldn't play the video.

But the RIAA "attacked" a 12 year old for filesharing. So because she's 12 years old and she's an "ordinary" human being, she can go on and file share the shit out of her?

I don't know the actual case, but I it's not quite obvious on what the girl did.

I've never entered file sharing. I got all the games in the world, and I pay for the software I use (quite dearly I may add). I don't see any reason to actually steal my software or my songs. Not to mention that I have all the videos I want through youtube anyways, so I don't even need the radio.

I can't see the video so I'm probably a little ill informed, but:

Ok there is reasoning and common sense. IF the girl downloaded "a couple" of tracks, or "a couple" of games, then... maybe ok (though plainly illegal, but it's human nature). If on the other hand that girl has a huge library of 5000+ mp3 files, then... well wait a minute, she was served rightly the 2000$.

Again, could be ill informed, please inform me better...

Ok.

Saw the video and saw the petition.

Let's see now. Wondering if indeed the RIAA is not giving anything to the artists.

I'm sure that lawsuits all over ordinary people is not the solution, as I don't think that punishment is enough to prevent illegal activity.

I do believe that is illegal and that it is harmful (piracy I mean), but I also think that it's very useful:
1. If you check my signature you'll see something about a music comp. I contacted these people and they're giving a prize of 259$. I know these people and I work together. If they are financially hurt, then this kinda touches me as well. I talk with Gary Garritan (as a couple of members know here), and hope for a collaboration. anyone pirating GPO, or any other sample library of his, could possibly be hurting my own interest. (<- simply put piracy could be something that touches me... and maybe other members in here).
2. Of course we all know that 90+% of people who pirate software would never ever buy it, and actually that the left 8%, will eventually buy it after trying "try before buy", which makes perfect sense to me. So the loss is actually very small.
3. Prices are waaaay up high for music, and I have stoped buying music! I buy 1-2 CDs per year (as well as games... but old games which I can finf at 2£ per game )
4. Microsoft is what it is because of piracy.

I mean in the end piracy is not so bad... but there are people who actually are loosing money...

(also this post seems to be going more and more off topic...) sorry

[scotch]

Most of the stuff you watch on youtube is there without permission, unless you like watching the user produced stuff like teenagers singing along to songs on their webcams (oh wait, that music is there without permission too...). File sharing ethics side though, the RIAA and many of the larger labels it represents are outdated organisations clinging to power through litigation, and unless they can successfully abuse their position it's only a matter of time before these middle men are less important in the commercial music model as everything heads digital (from production to distribution to playing). Their strategies for maintaining that hold on the industry suck, not least including irritating DRM which hasn't once been effective, and limits people's (legal) ability to transfer audio between devices.

[Traveler]

I fully agree with RickJ. And when we talk about DRM, let's not forget about the virus Sony was kindly distributing.   

[Nikolas]

As I said I am ill informed... DRM sucks big time... Sorry for my previous post (which still stands but is irrelavent...)

[Ishmael]

Adding silly DRMs just brings the possible sales down. Where the CDs with all the stuff on them cost more and are harder to use the temptation to download them off the net grows even stronger. And about all CDs get leaked way before the release date anyway.

[Gregjazz]

For Nikolas and anyone else who wasn't able to view the video, here's a little homebrew transcript:

------

Okay, I know, this is totally the last thing you'd ever expect from me, but I'd like to take a moment to congratulate the RIAA legal team. And let me tell you why: after years of trying, those crazy kids managed to squeeze both feet in their mouths at the same time--winning the admiration of all their former law school classmates and redefining evil for the twentieth century. That's not easy to do!

In the case of elector vs. schwartz, the RIAA claimed to have a rock solid letter from the defendent's ISP. In this case, America Online, parent of our own weblogsinc: "Confirming that the defendent owned an internet access account through which copyrighted sound recordings were downloaded and distributed." Woah, slow up your roll RIAA law guy. This week, Ray Beckerman, attourney for Ms. Schwartz, obtained copies of the letter and, guess what? There's not a mention of copyright infringment present--not even a whisper. Further, when the RIAA made these claims, they did so in front of a judge, in effort to prevent Ms. Schwartz's motion for summary judgment.

So what does this mean? Let's put two and two together. Essentially, through misappropriation of facts, the RIAA lied to the judge in order to keep a very flimsy case together. Still not convinced the RIAA holds their board meetings somewhere around the seventh circle of hell? There's more. Ms. Schwartz isn't just your average RIAA defendent. Or maybe she is? You see, Ms. Schwartz is a multiple sclerosis patient, which is a neurological disease that's easily exacerbated by stress or anxiety. So, apparently, the RIAA misled and misguided the court in order to continue a relatively unsubstantiated case against a woman who's legal battle is actually causing her physical harm. You see now why I've got to hand it to these guys, cause when they go looking for new ways to be evil--they don't mess around.

------

EDIT: Also check this out: http://www.radioandrecords.com/radiomonitor/news/business/top_news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003466905

I guess the musicians are making too much money, and it's not fair for the RIAA...

[Nikolas]

Thanks Greg.

Now... it is indeed true that musicians are all millioners... 

[Darth Mandarb]

I know this pisses off a lot of people here abouts but I don't buy CDs anymore.  MP3 is free and I can get whatever I want for free.

I'm not a cheap guy, but I refuse to pay 15 USD for something that costs them 30 cents to produce.  Until they DRASTICALLY lower the cost per CD (I'm talking 1-2 USD each) I'm sticking with my FREE mp3 downloads.

The whole RIAA, DRM, "fair rights" blah blah blah ... is such a COLOSSAL waste of time/resources which only serves to raise the cost of music.  And after 1 year of them busting their humps 10 hours a day, 7 days a week to create the latest greatest copy protection to screw over their consumers ... some 14 year old kid in his parent's basement cracks it in 10 minutes.  Total waste of time and money.

How these people can actually fight this "war" is beyond me.

[MrColossal]

http://www.amazon.com/Memorex-700MB-80-Minute-50-Pack-Spindle/dp/B000075UZ7/sr=8-2/qid=1165865233/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/103-0805942-1045400?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

But CDs are less than a dollar each now. Oh you mean the entire cost of producing a band, paying advertisers, mixing the sound and all that.

Also, why can't people spell Colossal by now?!

[LimpingFish]

I still buy CDs, as it's my prefered way to purchase music. It may or may not be connected to an "old school" way of thinking that money should be exchanged for actual physical goods rather than data that exists as a file on my PC.

E-Distribution is every companies dream, eliminating the need for a physical product and costs related to such.

DRM-controlled E-Distribution is every companies wet dream. A world where you control not only the product, but how the costumer has access to it too.

This is not a world I look foward to being a consumer in.

[ManicMatt]

1-2USD Darth??  :o I might as well give my album away when it is ready! For I would be losing out overall from the costs of making it in the first place at that price. And I don't even have advertisers, mixers, producers etc to pay, or a record company taking a large cut!

I usually agree with you on many things Darth, but not today!

Limping Fish: Yeah I prefer something physical! Not just to feel like I actually got something that I can display on my shelf, peruse the artwork etc, but take this example: I played my legit copy of Oblivion loads. What about my copy of Fable? I keep forgetting I even have it because it's not actually here for me to see it! Teehee!

[Erenan]

What Eric and Matt said.

CDs are still very nearly my sole means of purchasing and listening to music, and I almost never feel cheated paying 15-20 dollars for an album. That having been said, I do realize that digital distribution is inevitable and will be the standard eventually. This is sad news for me, because I like the artistic potential in having a physical CD distributed in a case with liner notes and pictures inside. The good news is that this kind of artistry is still possible with digital distribution. So all of that to say... I like pie.

As a consumer, I don't feel violated by the RIAA, but I don't follow this kind of stuff at all, so I don't even know how I'm being cheated, if at all (Note that I didn't even click on the link in the first post, as petitions do not interest me). I am, however, interested in how record company executives traditionally cheat their artists as standard industry procedure, and digital distribution as a standard is actually a good step to take on this front, because it then becomes much easier for artists to be independently successful. This is good.

Okay, I don't have much to say that is terribly relevant. Carry on.

[Darth Mandarb]

1-2USD Darth??  :o I might as well give my album away when it is ready! For I would be losing out overall from the costs of making it in the first place at that price. And I don't even have advertisers, mixers, producers etc to pay, or a record company taking a large cut!

I usually agree with you on many things Darth, but not today!

As I said, I bump heads with a lot about my feelings toward this!  No worries though!  I respect your opinions; even if we don't agree

But if you produce your own album and are releasing if yourself I'll pay you 15 USD for it!  At least you're getting all the money rather than the record company taking 14.999 and giving you a 10th of a cent for your cut.  As I said, I'm not cheap but I'm not going to line the pockets of the record labels who's pockets are lined too much as it is.  You can show me all the stats about producing a CD as you want (marketing, blah blah blah) I don't accept that all that ads up to 12-15 USD per CD.  If it really does ... then they need to find a way to lower their costs, to lower the cost for us.

Bottom line ... as long as mp3 is free and widely available, which it ALWAYS will be, they NEED to lower their costs.

[Traveler]

1-2USD Darth??  :o I might as well give my album away when it is ready! For I would be losing out overall from the costs of making it in the first place at that price. And I don't even have advertisers, mixers, producers etc to pay, or a record company taking a large cut!

That's because you don't do it on the same scale they do.

But I'd be willing to pay up to ~$15 per CD as long as the music is good. It is, however, harder and harder to find full CDs that I would even consider listening into, let alone buying it. I still buy CDs every once in a while (back in Hungary I have ~200 CDs), but in the past 6 years I only bought maybe 15.

I also wouldn't mind buying downloadable music as long as the format is fully unprotected mp3. I tried iTunes (which I hate along with Apple) but I refuse to pay even a single cent for music that is locked down and low-quality. (AFAIK, the compression iTunes uses is below even CD-quality mp3 to keep file sizes down.)

(BTW, if any of you can recommend good music, I'm all ears. I listen to Mike Oldfield, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, etc., so if you know something that's good and similar to these artists, please let me know.)

[Tuomas]

Well truthfully, I download shitloads of music almost daily. whenever I feel like it. But note, that that is the one and only reason who I now have more cds that I can afford. I usually download a cd, unless it's my favourite band, like the flower kings, which I bought the day it was out, And I listen to the album. If it's good I'm going to buy it. this happened with The Tears, Tiktak, Caravan, Renaissance's all albums, Tasavallan Presidentti, Magenta etc. Now I don't mind if the cds cost 20 euros each, I'm willing to pay that to the artist, I'm even willing to pay that to Bunnymilk once he gets his new songs ready, but I'm so god damn bored of having to be warned by my dad that the police are going to take me away. Which they did to 2 people this year who got caught from sharing and downloading terabytes of stuff, now that downloading is illegal in Finland too. 2 God damn people. The whole law is useless.

Sorry, I had a few beers, what's RIAA?

[Evil]

Most CD's now are from, $17.99 to $19.99, which I agree with Darth, is crazy. I think $12 is a reasonable MAXIMUM for a CD. I haven't bought many CD's lately, because they are all so expensive. I understand that there are a lot of costs involved in making CDs, but if you sell 1 million copies at $20, your making less then 3 million at $10. But two CDs for $40 is terrible. I wouldn't even think about that. Three for $30 isn't bad.

Also, band's need to be more creative with their CDs. They're not just selling music, they're selling art and information. Beck's most recent album had a great idea, to make your own cover with stickers. You can't download that. You can't download album art (usually).

Another random addition to legal music rights, a parent group at our school pushed to eliminate radios being played in the classrooms. Not because it was distracting or because it was violent and sexual, but because they don't have a "broadcasting licence". Because the school didn't have the rights to play music. Yet they also pushed to get them to play ACDC's Back in Black at the football games. Thirty students in a class room or close to a thousand people at a football game?

[ManicMatt]

I can see where you're coming from Darth.

Yes, different circumstances, Traveler, which is why I mentioned not having a producer etc, but sure, you're right.

For me the artwork for my albums is almost as important as the music! My last album, well the artwork was BETTER than the music! haha! This album, well the artwork ties in with a song on it, which said song will sometime soon have the video released, which ties in with that! I am happy that I've got a theme going on that's all connected and not an afterthought.

I tend not to buy albums in the shops as it's way cheaper on the internet, as you all know. It's kinda sad to know my local record shops are suffering, and it's only a matter of time before they disapear.. sometimes I will buy an album in there to support them, one I like to visit in particular. That is, the independant record shops, we clear? I couldn't give a rats ass about HMV.

[MrColossal]

I'd be interested in seeing "actual" statistics of what it takes to make a cd for a major distributor and where the money goes. If 1 cent goes to the performer and that proves to be a grossly unreasonable number, I'd like to know.

[skyfire2]

But if you produce your own album and are releasing if yourself I'll pay you 15 USD for it!  At least you're getting all the money rather than the record company taking 14.999 and giving you a 10th of a cent for your cut.  As I said, I'm not cheap but I'm not going to line the pockets of the record labels who's pockets are lined too much as it is.  You can show me all the stats about producing a CD as you want (marketing, blah blah blah) I don't accept that all that ads up to 12-15 USD per CD.  If it really does ... then they need to find a way to lower their costs, to lower the cost for us.

So even if the musician actually does make money, you say it's okay to steal it because it costs to much? Thats ridiculous. Every time you download music illegally the price goes up to make up for the music you stole. It may not be that much but it does add up.