xepherys

From this article:
I wonder if anyone that is part of the RIAA, MPAA, or any major label owns an iPod or other music playing device (we all know UMG execs were required to buy a Zune). Is it possible that they, themselves, use it for nothing more than stolen music and feel the need to bear their black souls upon us? As Tycho from Penny Arcade mentioned, Frankly, I think juicing granite may actually be an easier task as there is surely some Juiceman Juicer that is up to the task. Is anyone up to the task of stopping the Music Industry Juggernaut?

I have to wonder, additionally, where this ends? If nobody stands up to them, when will their appetite for litigation and US Dollars be satiated? I think the RIAA/MPAA represent the combined 21st century Scrooge and Grinch, stealing and pilfering with a "Bah Humbug!" here and a "I hate Christmas!" there.

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Bill O'Rights

Awwww, man...

I thought this was gonna be a thread about Madonna, Britney and Xtina.

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xepherys

We should write a TFP Original Drama call ed the "Three Ho's of Christmas"... Ho ho ho indeed!

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flstf

I don't think the same rules apply to them.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/80089

Halx

Now that's a quote that'll drive sales.

I have to sort of stand back and consider the audacity of it, actually. It epitomizes the greed. It turns the focus of music from art to nothing but a business. And thats what makes me proud to claim that I have no idea who the fuck "T.I." is.

I'm kinda disappointed in the artists, too. If you can even call them artists. They're nothing more than tools now. Selling themselves for the greedy labels. Its a shame. This, however, is an opinion from an outsider looking in. I'm sure if I were deep into their world, I wouldn't know the difference. And who knows... maybe they're in it solely for the money as well. Then I'd feel sorry for their fans.

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Glory's Sun

I agree with you Hal but the point is no matter what reason the "artists" are in the music "game" there are plenty of people who still buy their crap and go to their concerts. Perhaps the masses need to find a better understanding of what music is and we'd in turn see a real shift in artists/music?

The whole music debate just keeps growing and growing until hopefully the RIAA will die a horrid death. There was an article I browsed the other talking about how they want the internet shut down because that's the where people get their music.

So anyway, I guess if people with lots of bucks can say stolen music can help them make more bucks.. it's ok.

caver

I would love to see another sort of litigation, A class action suit involving everyone who has purchased a CD since 1995.
I remember reading at the time of the introduction of the Compact Disk,
the government was involved with the RIAA in setting the price of CDs.
The RIAA was using the cost of retooling to produce CDs, as a reason to
set the prices high. Congress was "assured," that as they recovered their investment, in new tooling, then the prices of CDs could be reduced.
I have not seen the price of newly released CDs going down, have you.
The RIAA is stealing from everyone who purchases a CD.

I cannot remember the publication in which I read about this.
I have not as yet been able find a reference to cite.
I don't really have the time to make a committed search, but I look from time to time.
Incedentally, the only music Mp3s I have are from my own CDs.
I do not share commercial music files.

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FoolThemAll

How's this? Exactly what definition of theft are you using?

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Willravel

In the same way that a politican that say he'll lower taxes is stealing when he doesn't.

The RIAA is a broken machine that is now out of control. It should be dismantled and something more honorable should be erected in it's place.

FoolThemAll

This doesn't really clear up my confusion, unless your implication is that neither situation involves theft.

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Willravel

Precisely. A lie is different than theft.

ubertuber

Except a politician has some sort of ethical obligation to follow through on campaign promises (that they don't is a breach of integrity). The RIAA doesn't have to ask Congress how to set prices for CDs. They could ask prices that gave 3000% profit and it would be perfectly legal. In fact, in other markets some companies use that strategy to enhance the perception of "prestige" in their product.

The issue of pricing of CDs and quality of artistic output is only tangentially related to the ethics or legality of downloading copyrighted material. A motive is not the same thing as a justification. Although the quote cited in the original post is yet another indication that the RIAA is completely missing the freaking boat on electronic distribution, even that is unrelated to unauthorized downloads.

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spectre

Doesn't the RIAA consitute a monopoly? I realize that it's a group of different record companies, but isn't it sort of like the DeBeers monopoly on diamonds? One group controlling most of a product and going well beyond normal overcharging to the point of violating antitrust laws?

There can't be any way the largest providers of an industry can have a group that exists purely for the purpose of keeping their prices artificially high and not be investigated. I mean, we can get a committee on how much Barry Bond's nuts have shrunk from steriod use, but nothing on why we're paying well beyond fair market value on something pretty much everyone buys?

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ubertuber

I don't think you could say the RIAA is a monopoly because it isn't a company any more than the American Chemistry Council is a monopoly. It's a group of companies that pool resources for lobbying purposes because they have common concerns - sort of like the AFL-CIO. It's also not a cartel because they don't actually set prices for the whole industry. Tower Records was charging one price while Barnes and Noble had another. Meanwhile, Virgin has a third price. This is saying nothing of the fact that EMI may price their albums differently from Decca or Teldec.

I don't think there's any requirement to meet the kind of fair market value you're talking about. That concept has more to do with regulated markets than the music industry. As far as I know, any record company (or retailer) has the right to charge as much as the market will bear. If someone is willing to pay their price, than it's fair market value. Think of this: a Lamborghini costs more than a Ford. Not only that, but it has a higher profit margin, and you can't buy one without dealing with the company's distributor network in America. That doesn't make a monopoly. And the car is expensive, but for that car, $250,000 is market value. If they decided to charge $900,000 it would change nothing, except sales would probably go down. The drop in sales might or might not offset the rise in profit margin. Either way, you still have to pay what they ask to get the product. Exorbitant profits don't justify vigilante acquisition. They might, however, constitute a knuckle-headed business plan that puts people out of work. Nothin' illegal about stupidity.

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DaElf

I send my money directly to the artist. The middle man can kiss my ass.You can't deny back in 1990 the music industry was being unfair to people by selling them a CD for 18 dollars.They took advantage of the situation so now I will take advantage of the situation. I'll just be unfair back and completely cut them out of the process. The artists deserve it anyway.

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caver

I do realize that I made a bold statement, considering I do not have a citation.
I remember being surprised at the time, that the federal government had any inv olvement in setting the prices for CD's. I distinctly remember the RIAA was involved with the Legislature in negotiating a price point for CDs at the time.
This may have been in an audiophile magazine, or a trade, (for instance the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society), or perhaps even Rolling Stone. I will
start looking in earnest. Mostly out of personal curiosity.

I can't be the only person in the world who remembers this.

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Bill O'Rights

Oooooh...I dunno...

You'd be amazed at the stuff that I'm the only person in the world who remembers.

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"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

xepherys

Like Santa Saddam sliding down your chimney?

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The prospect of achieving a peace agreement with the extremist group of MILF is almost impossible...
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roachboy

fuck the riaa.

people should download what they like.
listen to what they like.
buy what they like.

go to shows by bands they enjoy and buy the cds they like from them direct.

the riaa exists to defend the economic interests of the major record labels.
they defend an 18th century notion of copyright, in which the cd as object is the property being sold, not the contents, and the profits go primarily to the producers of the physical cd.
the writing is on the wall for this whole old model of production and distribution.
the majors have not worked out a awy to profit from electronic distribution, so they are trying to stop or limit it.
but screw em, let them all burn.

it is not as though the major labels have really cared about consumer interests: cds are much cheaper per unit than were lps, yet when cds were introduced the retail prices were higher than those of vinyl, even though the sound quality is in many ways lower. the idea apparently was the create a pseudo-audiophile niche for digital products alongside vinyl. well, that didnt work out, but prices stayed higher per unt than lps.
fair market price?
what's that?

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keyshawn

ubertuber's answer is pretty complete, but I'll chime in with a couple other points why the MLB has been under scrutiny and the RIAA has not.

The RIAA has pretty good lobbyists working for them and donate to a few hundred thousand to various Congressmen over the years.
(not as much as they used to, since they and other media ownership companies like Disney, were able to get their copyrights extended in the 1998 Sonny Bono copyright act).

AFIAK, the pro sports leagues (and the MLB) don't make campaign contributions to US politicians, so they might have less clout as a result (by no means is this the only or main reason that the RIAA is able to 'get away' from congressional scrutiny but the MLB can't).

Secondly, the Congressmen and Washington people are probably more of baseball fans (I remember reading somewhere that one of the investigators was a baseball fan and he felt concern that the steroid speculation was ruining the purity of the game).
than they are of music fans.

Compared to a focus on the music industry for price fixing CD's, the baseball issue (steroids) is less about an economics issue than it is about an intangible [for the lack of a better word] value of the 'purity' of the game (although the steroids issue could have economic effects when fans disenchanted with steroids no longer go to games and spend money on it).

catcha back on the flipside,
will.


[sources: opensecrets.org and Lawrence Lessig's 2004 book - Free Culture]

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ubertuber

To reiterate: they aren't really price-fixing. And fair market value is a subjective term the way it is being used. The only objective fair market value is the one the exists where sellers want to sell and buyers want to buy. And right now that's whatever a CD costs. The difference between the MLB and the RIAA isn't even what is in the post above mine (though they are all good points on the practical issues). The difference is that steroid use is illegal and record companies controlling material they own the rights to is not. It is that simple. Really.


For all of my seeming defense of the RIAA above, I want to say that roachboy is right on about outmoded notions of copyrighted material. Here's the thing. When you buy a CD, you aren't buying music. You're buying a license to listen to music. There's a difference and it isn't accidental. Nobody wants to sell you music. Not the composer, not the artist, not the producer, not the label, not the distributer, and not the retailer.

The difference is that while you can listen to a CD, you don't have the rights to the musical content on the disc. You can't transcribe it and sell it as your own. You can't memorize it and play it in concerts without purchasing the rights to do so. You can't sample excerpts and use them in a new piece of music. All of these things require a separate transaction. You're not even supposed to duplicate the CD, as you paid for that copy. What is difficult here is that many of these guidelines (in particular the one about copying) were rather self-enforcing in the days of analog distribution. It was a serious pain in the ass to make a ton of copies of something without seriously degrading the sound quality, so the viral distribution thing wasn't a problem. Now that this barrier of impracticality has been removed, people feel no compunction about taking liberties with copyrighted material that they haven't paid for.

Personally, I absolutely do not believe a single person who says that they download as a protest because the price of a CD is too high. They download because they would rather have the copyrighted material than not, and they don't want to pay. Going with my analogy from several posts back, just because I feel that a Lamborghini is unreasonably expensive doesn't mean that I get to appropriate one without paying as a protest. That's not a protest and it's not civil disobedience.

Back to roachboy being right... I think we're seeing the death throes of CD distribution, and in all likelihood the business model of record labels who depend on that sort of distribution to control content. How much longer do you think it will be before Napster, Rhapsody, or Apple begins dealing directly with artists to distribute content? That's a trick question, because they're already doing it with classical music. The NY Philharmonic and LA Philharmonic sell recordings of live concerts within a few days of the performance on the iTunes store. It's an obvious move and it benefits everybody.

While the RIAA may be technically correct in their interpretation of the law, it ain't gonna help them in the future. They need to wake up and start finding ways to utilize the current of public action rather than fight it. That's the only way for them to stay alive. It won't take much longer for artists to find ways to circumvent their lock on distribution the way their potential customers are doing.

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caver

This seemed relevant to this topic:
NY Teen sued by RIAA, files countersuit.
http://www.1010wins.com/pages/193237...ntentId=298727

NY Teen in Piracy Lawsuit Accuses Record Companies of Collusion

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- A 16-year-old boy being sued for online music piracy accused the recording industry on Tuesday of violating antitrust laws, conspiring to defraud the courts and making extortionate threats.

In papers responding to a lawsuit filed by five record companies, Robert Santangelo, who was as young as 11 when the alleged piracy occurred, denied ever disseminating music and said it's impossible to prove that he did.

Santangelo is the son of Patti Santangelo, the 42-year-old suburban mother of five who was sued by the record companies in 2005. She refused to settle, took her case public and became a heroine to supporters of Internet freedom.

The industry dropped its case against her in December but sued Robert and his sister Michelle, now 20, in federal court in White Plains. Michelle has been ordered to pay $30,750 in a default judgment because she did not respond to the lawsuit.

Robert Santangelo and his lawyer, Jordan Glass, responded at length on Tuesday, raising 32 defenses, demanding a jury trial and filing a counterclaim against the companies for allegedly damaging the boy's reputation, distracting him from school and costing him legal fees.

His defenses to the industry's lawsuit include that he never sent copyrighted music to others; that the recording companies promoted file sharing before turning against it; that average computer users were never warned that it was illegal; that the statute of limitations has passed; and that all the music claimed to have been downloaded was actually owned by his sister on store-bought CDs.

Santangelo also claims that the record companies, which have filed more than 18,000 piracy lawsuits in federal courts, "have engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to defraud the courts of the United States.''

The papers allege that the companies, "ostensibly competitors in the recording industry, are a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and public policy'' by bringing the piracy cases jointly and using the same agency "to make extortionate threats ... to force defendants to pay.''

The Recording Industry Association of America, which has coordinated most of the lawsuits, issued a statement saying, "The record industry has suffered enormously due to piracy. That includes thousands of layoffs. We must protect our rights. Nothing in a filing full of recycled charges that have gone nowhere in the past changes that fact.''

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djtestudo

This is either going to be thrown out, or it's headed to the Supreme Court, because if it gets to a jury I can't see them ruling against this kid.

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Xazy

Go kid I hope it goes to court would love to follow the case and what is uncovered during the course of the trial.

moot1337

* * H E R O * *

...not because file sharing is ethical, but because it takes a lot to stand up to an organization with such power. Best of luck!

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ngdawg

This is an interesting statistic:
Sales of digital albums up 126% in the first half of 2006
A total of 270.6 mln physical albums were sold in the first half of 2006 in the US, representing a drop of 12 mln units from 2005 first half total of 282.6 mln, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Digital albums improved by 8.2 mln units, with 14.7 mln units sold versus just 6.4 mln units in the first half of 2005. Digital tracks gained by 122 mln units; 281 mln tracks were sold in the first six months of the year versus 158 mln in the same period 2004. Sales of digital albums soared 126% during the first half of 2006, while digital tracks rose 77%. Physical album sales continued to decline in the US during the first six months of 2006, down 4.2%. Source

So what I gather from this is that, although buying cd's has fallen off, people paying for and dowloading full albums has more than doubled. What's the fuss about? RIAA not getting enough kickbacks now?
From the same source:
Digital music sales generated $790 mln in the first half of 2005
Digital music now makes up 6% of total sales, or about $790 mln, according to International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Sales of CDs and other physical formats continued a long decline, falling to $13.2 bln from $13.4 bln in the first half of 2004. In the United States physical sales fell 5.3% by value and 5.7% by units. In Japan physical sales were down 9.2% in value and 6.9% in units.
Now, while there's a decline in physical sales, digital sales have more than doubled, but physical sales still generated over $13 billion. And they're suing a 16 year old kid???
/me shakes her head...
I want some of that action....what a racket.

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