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Cool, now i can just print out the list of member artists, cross-reference it to my list of people to buy presents for, and figure out what to buy in a matter of minutes without the guilt of blindly supporting the RIAA. True, depending on the label some money may make its way to their hired thu^M^M^M^M^M legal dept, but at least some other fraction of my money is going to fight said legal dept.

And while i'm at the record store, i can buy some scratched up used CDs which still, in theory, include liscence to enjoy the content originally pressed into those disks, so i can go home and download songs without pirating anything, while not paying full price ;-)

only applies to *real* artists, not fake teen bands that are direct products of the RIAA

Christina Aguilera is a member.

I'm as shocked as you, man!

There's a pretty diverse list of people there. Something for everyone to love (Mos Def, Q-Tip, The Roots, Aimee Mann & Michael Penn, Taj Mahal) and hate (Lords of Acid, Offspring, Sisqo, Dixie Chicks). Adjust lists for your taste.

I'm kinda surprised to see Fred Durst as a member, considering he's on the board of directors at Interscope. Who knows.

The basic issue is intellectual property rights, and how this applies to the artists who perform the music, and the record companies who market it. I'm not seeing much discussion about here, so I thought I'd do some research and post some more background.

The interesting thing to me is that recording artists and the record companies have vastly different opinions about the availability of music on the internet.

In general, artists would like to be able to sell their own music on the web -- however, they do want that music to be sold, not given away or stolen.

Artists who don't have labels are free to put their own stuff out there for download. They also have the ability to sell it on personally-made CDs or other media, although at this time they have no way to safeguard this media once it gets into someone else's hands.

Artists who are signed to a record company want to be able to market their music on the internet without going through their record companies (therefore getting the proceeds themselves, and not giving the record companies their 'cut'), presumably because the record companies are predatory. Predatory aspects of the record companies, for example, are a large part of Courtney Love's and LeAnn Rimes' opinions (below).

The record companies not only want to prevent 'their' CDs from showing up on morpheus, etc, they also want to prevent recording artists from putting other tracks onto the web for sale or for free. If artists could do this outside of their contracts, the record companies would of course lose money and customers.

Therefore, record companies want to prevent their CDs from being ripped or copied (hence this article), AND they want to prevent their artists from getting around their contracts by selling directly to consumers.

All in all, I think the record companies are RIGHT to try to keep their product from being pirated. However, not only is this basically impossible, but the MEANS they are going about it is going to cause a huge backlash and only hurt the record companies and the artists further.

Here's some more info:

From Intellectual Property Is an Oxymoron:

"There's an important difference between authors and publishers that the current intellectual property system ignores. Authors still perform a valuable service by creating intellectual property. Publishers perform an increasingly useless service, copying information that individuals who own computers connected by the Internet can copy on their own...

"...Publishers have become useless middlemen rendered obsolete by digital technology. The laws of supply and demand are driving their profit margins to zero... Notably, nearly 30 states are now suing the top record labels alleging CD price fixing."

Some artists' opinions:

Courtney Love: "Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software. I'm talking about major label recording contracts. " (from her speech to the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference, given in New York on May 16, as quoted on Salon.com.)

Business Week, writing about the Recording Artists Coalition (RAC) testimony at a Senate hearing in April:

"Musical artists represented by RAC want to be able to sell their music on the Internet without going through the bureaucracy of record labels. While many artists supported the copyright-infringement lawsuit the RIAA brought against Napster, they now want labels to aggressively award licensing deals to legitimate independent music Web sites in addition to the labels' own online services. That's something that isn't happening as fast as artists hoped."

a variety of artists at a Senate hearing in September, including Courtney Love, Don Henley, and LeAnn Rimes.

Alanis Morrissette (from Billboard.com): "'Artists today are not being given a chance to experience the normal ebbs and flows that result in an artist's evolution.'

"In Morissette's opinion, the Internet at one time offered great promise. Such companies as MP3.com and Napster, she said, 'offered a link between artists and audiences and was a way for less-established artists to have a forum to reach those who will be touched by their art.' Now, she said, those same companies have been 'litigated, vilified, and ultimately consolidated to the point where these opportunities [don't exist].' "Pointing to Napster's relationship with Bertelsmann, and the acquisition of MP3.com and Emusic by Vivendi Universal, Morissette said that the Internet has become 'a bottleneck for creativity,' because the media conglomerates are attempting to apply traditional, profit-oriented business models to the new medium."

Are the AFM really doing nothing about Work For Hire?

Tom.

The LA Times and other major newspapers ran an ad today sponspored by Artists Against Piracy. Some well-known and not-so-well-known bands and performers have their names printed in the ad. I suggest the web site is due for a nasty Slashdotting. If they have a contact email address, that inbox should be filled up with your thoughts on the accusation they are making by the very name they chose for the organization (I can't tell if there is a contact email address on the site because it requires Shockwave, for which there is no Solaris plugin).