I'm a large buyer of music, and find swapping to be a great way of discovering good artists, but agree it's technically piracy.
But, the music industry should worry more about Clear Channels and the MTVs of the world only pushing the LCD( least common denominator) of talent to the forefront of their limited offerings.
Ron Sexsmith, Paul Westeberg, Josh Rouse, Drive-By Truckers, Lucinda Williams,Artful Dodger, Trail Of Dead,etc..can barely be found even at the extreme left of the dial, as even the alternative kids of today's college radio grew up on NSYNC, BLINK 182, AND OTHER CR@P AND ARE CLUELESS FOR THE MOST PART.
RIP WARREN ZEVON!
But, the music industry should worry more about Clear Channels and the MTVs of the world only pushing the LCD( least common denominator) of talent to the forefront of their limited offerings.
Ron Sexsmith, Paul Westeberg, Josh Rouse, Drive-By Truckers, Lucinda Williams,Artful Dodger, Trail Of Dead,etc..can barely be found even at the extreme left of the dial, as even the alternative kids of today's college radio grew up on NSYNC, BLINK 182, AND OTHER CR@P AND ARE CLUELESS FOR THE MOST PART.
RIP WARREN ZEVON!
The corporate delivery system does severely restrict the volume of different material that people can listen to easily.
I reckon its because its cheaper and gives a higher return to have a limited amount of talent and to give that talent max exposure.
Even the radio stations seem to be a part of this system nowadays.
Maybe internet only radio stations in offshore locations will spring up to level the playing field again.(like offshore radio stations in the 60's)
The technology is certainly there.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/
I reckon its because its cheaper and gives a higher return to have a limited amount of talent and to give that talent max exposure.
Even the radio stations seem to be a part of this system nowadays.
Maybe internet only radio stations in offshore locations will spring up to level the playing field again.(like offshore radio stations in the 60's)
The technology is certainly there.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/
Over the years I have purchased thousands of dollars worth of music, I am not a thief. I have bought one album in (The Dark Side Of The Moon)5 differant formats (vinyl, import vinyl, cassette, cd and now SACD). A lot of my collection is on vinyl and I have replaced a lot of it with CDs, which by the way I don't feel have lived up to the sonic promise that was hyped. There are few artists(I use the term loosely here)today I would pay hard earned money for their work. I do download but only to get music that I have already purchased on another format or to sample new artists. And I have made purchases that I would not have made if not for the ability to preview.
The music industry will only succeed in alienating customers more by this lawsuit business. I will be very interested in finding out how this litigation fairs.
The music industry will only succeed in alienating customers more by this lawsuit business. I will be very interested in finding out how this litigation fairs.
The music industry missed the boat 5 to 10 years ago.
It's all about technology and technology cannot be stopped. They need to live with it and learn how to best exploit the new medium.
For those who may not know sheet music publishing was big in the early part of the 20th century. Most middle class families had a piano and could play music. Can you imagine sheet music publishers suing HMV for distributing music on shellac records or companies for manufacturing phonographs? No the music publishers, who held the rights to the music, adapted to and licensed the new technology.
So far as the copyright issue is concerned the music companies and the RIAA is in the right and should win any suits it brings. This is however like trying to bolt the barn door after the horse has bolted and the barn has burnt down.
They should have licensed the new medium when it was offered to them.
For more info visit:
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2753
It's all about technology and technology cannot be stopped. They need to live with it and learn how to best exploit the new medium.
For those who may not know sheet music publishing was big in the early part of the 20th century. Most middle class families had a piano and could play music. Can you imagine sheet music publishers suing HMV for distributing music on shellac records or companies for manufacturing phonographs? No the music publishers, who held the rights to the music, adapted to and licensed the new technology.
So far as the copyright issue is concerned the music companies and the RIAA is in the right and should win any suits it brings. This is however like trying to bolt the barn door after the horse has bolted and the barn has burnt down.
They should have licensed the new medium when it was offered to them.
For more info visit:
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2753
Kind of funny how the music execs screw the artists, but whine when it happens to them. I download a little - mainly new artists I hear on WXRT in Chicago. Then I buy them. Remember the industry bitched when cassettes came out. They don't realize that more exposure is better business. Try to find a John Prine song on the radio.
GB internet radio.
GB internet radio.
I'm against media piracy, as it is theft by its very definition. But the RIAA should have seen this coming, and the costs and hassle of trying to fix the problem are nothing less than it deserves.
Independent musicians and labels don't seem to be having this problem -- and they are the ones who have long been on the other side of RIAA's existing rigid, out-of-date marketing techniques, from molding a band into a more comercially-pleasing image, to the way online music sources do not get nearly the same level of treatment that brick-and-mortar ones do.
The RIAA has slept through every major development in the music industry and always ends up playing catch-up. As long as it has had the bubble-gum crowd to pay the bills buying up whatever puke is the latest approved new thing they haven't cared. Now that technology has made an end run around their marketing practices, rather than buck up and change with the changing market, they want to attempt to freeze the market for a little while ... no different from the steel industry getting tariffs against foreign steel, or the farms and other industries getting bailouts and subsidies that keep them from having to change with the changing marketplace.
And their latest techniques are for the most part deplorable, reminiscient of DirecTV's mssive dragnet operation. Witness the "amnesty deal" that was offered last week:
(couldn't find an hyperlink but I had the story archived at another forum)
From Reuters:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Internet users who promise to stop illegally copying music will be able to avoid prosecution under an amnesty program to be unveiled by the recording industry next week, a source close to the matter said on Friday.
Users would sign a notarized affidavit promising to stop using ``peer to peer'' programs like Kazaa to download copyrighted music for free and to delete all songs they may have acquired illegally, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Recording Industry Association of America is expected to file lawsuits early next week against hundreds of peer-to-peer users suspected of engaging in widespread copyright violations.
Those facing lawsuits would not be eligible for the amnesty program, the source said.
An RIAA spokesman declined to comment.
The amnesty program is one of several recent moves by the industry to reach out to digital-music users and soften the impact of an aggressive legal fight that has incurred the wrath of many music fans.
Earlier this week, Universal Music Group announced that it would slash the retail cost of its CDs by 30 percent, and analysts expect other labels to follow suit.
Industry-authorized download services have been gaining in popularity as they offer improved features, and some such as buymusic.com have been negotiating discount packages with colleges and universities.
Copyright expert Gigi Sohn, who has frequently clashed with the industry in the past, said the amnesty program sounds like a good idea, but participants should not be forced to renounce all forms of song copying.
``This is a heck of a lot better than just going out and suing the daylights out of people,'' said Sohn, president of the Washington-based advocacy group Public Knowledge. ``My concern is that people may give up rights they may have, such as the right to limited sharing.''
Internet users who continue to copy music online after signing the affidavit could face possible criminal charges for willful copyright infringement. It was not clear what information participants would have to provide to the RIAA, or how they could obtain the form.
In addition to Universal, a division of Vivendi Universal (V), RIAA members include AOL Time Warner Inc.'s (AOL) Warner Music; Sony Corp.'s Sony Music; Bertelsmann AG ; and EMI Group Plc .
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Over and above the sickening "I promise to be a good consumer" clause in the amnesty deal, what disturbs me the most about it is that people on the other side of the debate actually see this as a good thing -- as if anyone currently downloading music off of Kazaa is actually sitting frantic, wishing he could stop but fearing that he's past the point of absolution now that he's got that bootleg of Justified.
I'm not much for piracy, but some groups deserve all the annoyance they can get, and the RIAA is very high up on that list as far as I am concerned.
Phaedrus
Independent musicians and labels don't seem to be having this problem -- and they are the ones who have long been on the other side of RIAA's existing rigid, out-of-date marketing techniques, from molding a band into a more comercially-pleasing image, to the way online music sources do not get nearly the same level of treatment that brick-and-mortar ones do.
The RIAA has slept through every major development in the music industry and always ends up playing catch-up. As long as it has had the bubble-gum crowd to pay the bills buying up whatever puke is the latest approved new thing they haven't cared. Now that technology has made an end run around their marketing practices, rather than buck up and change with the changing market, they want to attempt to freeze the market for a little while ... no different from the steel industry getting tariffs against foreign steel, or the farms and other industries getting bailouts and subsidies that keep them from having to change with the changing marketplace.
And their latest techniques are for the most part deplorable, reminiscient of DirecTV's mssive dragnet operation. Witness the "amnesty deal" that was offered last week:
(couldn't find an hyperlink but I had the story archived at another forum)
From Reuters:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Internet users who promise to stop illegally copying music will be able to avoid prosecution under an amnesty program to be unveiled by the recording industry next week, a source close to the matter said on Friday.
Users would sign a notarized affidavit promising to stop using ``peer to peer'' programs like Kazaa to download copyrighted music for free and to delete all songs they may have acquired illegally, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Recording Industry Association of America is expected to file lawsuits early next week against hundreds of peer-to-peer users suspected of engaging in widespread copyright violations.
Those facing lawsuits would not be eligible for the amnesty program, the source said.
An RIAA spokesman declined to comment.
The amnesty program is one of several recent moves by the industry to reach out to digital-music users and soften the impact of an aggressive legal fight that has incurred the wrath of many music fans.
Earlier this week, Universal Music Group announced that it would slash the retail cost of its CDs by 30 percent, and analysts expect other labels to follow suit.
Industry-authorized download services have been gaining in popularity as they offer improved features, and some such as buymusic.com have been negotiating discount packages with colleges and universities.
Copyright expert Gigi Sohn, who has frequently clashed with the industry in the past, said the amnesty program sounds like a good idea, but participants should not be forced to renounce all forms of song copying.
``This is a heck of a lot better than just going out and suing the daylights out of people,'' said Sohn, president of the Washington-based advocacy group Public Knowledge. ``My concern is that people may give up rights they may have, such as the right to limited sharing.''
Internet users who continue to copy music online after signing the affidavit could face possible criminal charges for willful copyright infringement. It was not clear what information participants would have to provide to the RIAA, or how they could obtain the form.
In addition to Universal, a division of Vivendi Universal (V), RIAA members include AOL Time Warner Inc.'s (AOL) Warner Music; Sony Corp.'s Sony Music; Bertelsmann AG ; and EMI Group Plc .
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Over and above the sickening "I promise to be a good consumer" clause in the amnesty deal, what disturbs me the most about it is that people on the other side of the debate actually see this as a good thing -- as if anyone currently downloading music off of Kazaa is actually sitting frantic, wishing he could stop but fearing that he's past the point of absolution now that he's got that bootleg of Justified.
I'm not much for piracy, but some groups deserve all the annoyance they can get, and the RIAA is very high up on that list as far as I am concerned.
Phaedrus
It is no more wrong than back in the 80s when you would let your buddy borrow a tape you bought so that he could copy it. Why dont the movie coprorations go after VHS companies? Why dont the music industry go after tape recorders? Why would anyone have a need for a tape recorder to have the ability to record off the radio other than to steal music?
Afterall if I tape a song from the radio Im stealing music right?
This whole lawsuit is absurd.
Afterall if I tape a song from the radio Im stealing music right?
This whole lawsuit is absurd.
i say fvck em, fvck the music industry, they ve made billions out of trash musicians for decades, and billionaires and idols out of talentless mass consumption "bands" and "artists", while at the same time continuously sabotaging the real talented, independent artists. With their various merges they ve managed to actually own all the music "property" in the world between not more than a handfull of companies, and the money too. They ve doubled their profits makind vinyl extinct, in days virtually. They are trash, i have no respect whatsoever for them, they ve singlehandedly managed to steal more pocket money from kids than the candy bar or doll or toy car industry by seeling them crack whore trash musical pop idols such as aguilera or spears.
By their ultra agressive marketing and control of the artists they ve literally deadened the rock scene, turned r and b into repetetive boring shit, and teenage music to mind numbing crap.
So, i say fvck em, give the artist him power back, let him use the internet to trade for himself. Until then, i have no problem stealing off from the profits of thieves who 've stolen my money and the artists' too.
By their ultra agressive marketing and control of the artists they ve literally deadened the rock scene, turned r and b into repetetive boring shit, and teenage music to mind numbing crap.
So, i say fvck em, give the artist him power back, let him use the internet to trade for himself. Until then, i have no problem stealing off from the profits of thieves who 've stolen my money and the artists' too.
A related op-ed from the Los Angelos Times ...
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
'Amnesty' for Music File Sharing Is a Sham
By Fred von Lohmann
Fred von Lohmann is senior intellectual property attorney for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation.
September 10, 2003
No one can hold a candle to the music industry when it comes to squandering an opportunity. Having gotten everyone's attention by
threatening to sue 60 million American file-sharers, flooding Internet service providers with more than 1,500 subpoenas and on
Monday suing hundreds of individual file-sharers (or their parents) in federal court, the Recording Industry Assn. of America has blown it again.
Here's what the RIAA has proposed as ts "solution" to file-sharing: an "amnesty" for file-sharers. Just delete the MP3s you've
downloaded, shred those CD-R copies, confess your guilt and, in return, the most change-resistant companies in the nation will give
you nothing. Oh, the RIAA promises not to assist copyright owners in suing you. But its major-label members reserve the right to go after you, as do thousands of music publishers and artists like Metallica.
In other words, once you have come forward, you are more vulnerable to a lawsuit, not less. This is more "sham-nesty" than "amnesty."
What a waste.
Rather than trying to sue Americans into submission, imagine a real solution for the problem. What if the labels legitimized music
swapping by offering a real amnesty for all file-sharing, past, present and future, in exchange for say, $5 a month from each person
who steps forward?
The average American household spends less than $100 on prerecorded music annually. Assuming that many people will continue buying at
least some CDs (a recent survey by Forrester Research found that half of all file-sharers continue to buy as many or more CDs as they did
before catching the downloading bug), $60 per year for file sharing seems reasonable.
And such a plan would surely be more popular than the use-restricted and limited-inventory "authorized" alternatives. After all, the explosive growth of file-sharing is the strongest demand signal the record business has ever seen. The industry should embrace the
opportunity instead of continuing to thrash around like dinosaurs sinking in hot tar.
Rather than asking music fans to brand themselves as thieves, the music industry could be welcoming them back into the fold as
customers. Five bucks a month doesn't sound like much, but it would be pure profit for the labels. No CDs to ship, no online retailers to
cut in on the deal, no payola to radio conglomerates, no percentage to Kazaa or anyone else.
Best of all, it's an evergreen revenue stream — money that would just keep coming during good times and bad.
It has been done before. This is essentially how songwriters brought broadcast radio in from the copyright cold. Radio stations step up,
pay blanket fees and in return get to play whatever music they like.
Today, the performing-rights societies like ASCAP and BMI collect the money and pay out millions annually to their artists.
It's easy to predict the industry's excuses: "We don't have all the rights." "Antitrust law prevents us from acting together." "What about my cut of the CD?"
Puh-leeze. You tell us your industry's on the brink of extinction: It's time to do something daring, not suicidal.
The labels can create a new business model that will serve as an example to other copyright owners. After all, it's no more radical
than their threatening millions of Americans — customers — with ruinous litigation. What court or regulator is going to get in the way of a new approach that turns fans back into customers? Especially if the labels decide to offer a piece of the pie to artists — the
only group with a credible claim to victimhood, even if most of their victimization has come at the labels' hands.
There are only two possible outcomes here: Either the music companies stop whining and woo the 60 million potential customers who have
voted with their PCs for file-sharing, or some new companies will.
There's no place in the world for companies that are bent on holding back the future.
Let's see a real amnesty, one that displays respect instead of spite for customers.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Phaedrus
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
'Amnesty' for Music File Sharing Is a Sham
By Fred von Lohmann
Fred von Lohmann is senior intellectual property attorney for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation.
September 10, 2003
No one can hold a candle to the music industry when it comes to squandering an opportunity. Having gotten everyone's attention by
threatening to sue 60 million American file-sharers, flooding Internet service providers with more than 1,500 subpoenas and on
Monday suing hundreds of individual file-sharers (or their parents) in federal court, the Recording Industry Assn. of America has blown it again.
Here's what the RIAA has proposed as ts "solution" to file-sharing: an "amnesty" for file-sharers. Just delete the MP3s you've
downloaded, shred those CD-R copies, confess your guilt and, in return, the most change-resistant companies in the nation will give
you nothing. Oh, the RIAA promises not to assist copyright owners in suing you. But its major-label members reserve the right to go after you, as do thousands of music publishers and artists like Metallica.
In other words, once you have come forward, you are more vulnerable to a lawsuit, not less. This is more "sham-nesty" than "amnesty."
What a waste.
Rather than trying to sue Americans into submission, imagine a real solution for the problem. What if the labels legitimized music
swapping by offering a real amnesty for all file-sharing, past, present and future, in exchange for say, $5 a month from each person
who steps forward?
The average American household spends less than $100 on prerecorded music annually. Assuming that many people will continue buying at
least some CDs (a recent survey by Forrester Research found that half of all file-sharers continue to buy as many or more CDs as they did
before catching the downloading bug), $60 per year for file sharing seems reasonable.
And such a plan would surely be more popular than the use-restricted and limited-inventory "authorized" alternatives. After all, the explosive growth of file-sharing is the strongest demand signal the record business has ever seen. The industry should embrace the
opportunity instead of continuing to thrash around like dinosaurs sinking in hot tar.
Rather than asking music fans to brand themselves as thieves, the music industry could be welcoming them back into the fold as
customers. Five bucks a month doesn't sound like much, but it would be pure profit for the labels. No CDs to ship, no online retailers to
cut in on the deal, no payola to radio conglomerates, no percentage to Kazaa or anyone else.
Best of all, it's an evergreen revenue stream — money that would just keep coming during good times and bad.
It has been done before. This is essentially how songwriters brought broadcast radio in from the copyright cold. Radio stations step up,
pay blanket fees and in return get to play whatever music they like.
Today, the performing-rights societies like ASCAP and BMI collect the money and pay out millions annually to their artists.
It's easy to predict the industry's excuses: "We don't have all the rights." "Antitrust law prevents us from acting together." "What about my cut of the CD?"
Puh-leeze. You tell us your industry's on the brink of extinction: It's time to do something daring, not suicidal.
The labels can create a new business model that will serve as an example to other copyright owners. After all, it's no more radical
than their threatening millions of Americans — customers — with ruinous litigation. What court or regulator is going to get in the way of a new approach that turns fans back into customers? Especially if the labels decide to offer a piece of the pie to artists — the
only group with a credible claim to victimhood, even if most of their victimization has come at the labels' hands.
There are only two possible outcomes here: Either the music companies stop whining and woo the 60 million potential customers who have
voted with their PCs for file-sharing, or some new companies will.
There's no place in the world for companies that are bent on holding back the future.
Let's see a real amnesty, one that displays respect instead of spite for customers.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Phaedrus
"i say fvck em, fvck the music industry"
don't know what to think of the recent "crackdowns." Maybe they'll succeed in curbing 5-10 percent of music piracy... maybe a bit more if you believe a recent survey taken from college students. In the long run the only way for them to stop internet piracy I think is for the government to step in and put controls on your personal computers. So far any attempt to copywrite and control digital music distribution has been cracked by hackers or amateurs in a matter of days or minutes.
On that note, I just downloaded Outkast's new double album, and it's pretty funky. It's different, not sure if I like it as much as their previous albums but it's still pretty good.
don't know what to think of the recent "crackdowns." Maybe they'll succeed in curbing 5-10 percent of music piracy... maybe a bit more if you believe a recent survey taken from college students. In the long run the only way for them to stop internet piracy I think is for the government to step in and put controls on your personal computers. So far any attempt to copywrite and control digital music distribution has been cracked by hackers or amateurs in a matter of days or minutes.
On that note, I just downloaded Outkast's new double album, and it's pretty funky. It's different, not sure if I like it as much as their previous albums but it's still pretty good.
They can sue all they want and they won't even scratch the surface of the file swapping phenomenon. The internet is way too big and this is a good thing IMO. File swapping really only hurts the popular artists and will give them less incentive to play to the primitive animal instincts that have given them so much success up to now. The internet is changing the future of music and the new direction looks good to me.
Well how about that -- someone perhaps standing up to the RIAA ...
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Charter cable sues to block music inquiry
from the online edition of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Charter Communications Inc. filed a suit on Friday seeking to block the recording industry from obtaining the identities of Charter customers who allegedly shared copyrighted music over the Internet.
Charter filed papers in U.S. District Court in St. Louis in a bid to quash subpoenas that the Recording Industry Association of America issued seeking the identities of about 150 Charter customers.
"We are the only major cable company that has not as yet provided the RIAA a single datum of information," said Tom Hearity, vice president and associate general counsel for Charter, which is based in Town and Country.
The recording association has subpoenaed information as part of its effort to crack down on illegal distribution of copyrighted music. So far, the group has filed suits against 261 people, none of them in the St. Louis area.
Charter's move Friday suggested that Charter had undergone a change of heart on the issue. On Sept. 23, after the association issued its first subpoenas to Charter in St. Louis, a Charter spokesman said the company would "fully cooperate."
However, Hearity said that statement meant only that the company would "cooperate in the sense that we're going to operate within the legal process."
Representatives at the association's headquarters in Washington could not be reached.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Phaedrus
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
Charter cable sues to block music inquiry
from the online edition of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Charter Communications Inc. filed a suit on Friday seeking to block the recording industry from obtaining the identities of Charter customers who allegedly shared copyrighted music over the Internet.
Charter filed papers in U.S. District Court in St. Louis in a bid to quash subpoenas that the Recording Industry Association of America issued seeking the identities of about 150 Charter customers.
"We are the only major cable company that has not as yet provided the RIAA a single datum of information," said Tom Hearity, vice president and associate general counsel for Charter, which is based in Town and Country.
The recording association has subpoenaed information as part of its effort to crack down on illegal distribution of copyrighted music. So far, the group has filed suits against 261 people, none of them in the St. Louis area.
Charter's move Friday suggested that Charter had undergone a change of heart on the issue. On Sept. 23, after the association issued its first subpoenas to Charter in St. Louis, a Charter spokesman said the company would "fully cooperate."
However, Hearity said that statement meant only that the company would "cooperate in the sense that we're going to operate within the legal process."
Representatives at the association's headquarters in Washington could not be reached.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Phaedrus
