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>Imagine if a store took a similar tactic: Some people steal merchandise, and others
>simply choose to go to other stores. Rather than perhaps raise prices a bit to cover
>costs and work on advertising and loss prevention the owner says "Well because people
>aren't buying, I have to double prices."

What's that? Here in the US, that's a perfectly valid business model. Well, except that there are no other stores, and you should also sue the customers in hopes of raising more revenue.

You might want to read their actual position on issues rather than parrot the FUD spread by piracy activists. The RIAA does *not* object to ripping. They object to trading or re-distributing music you've ripped, whether you do it via an unauthorized p2p site, burning onto CDs and either passing them out or selling them, or otherwise violating their rights.

From their site:
Copying CDs

        * It's okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes.
        * It's also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R's, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) - but, again, not for commercial purposes.
        * Beyond that, there's no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won't usually raise concerns so long as:
                    o The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
                    o The copy is just for your personal use. It's not a personal use - in fact, it's illegal - to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.
        * The owners of copyrighted music have the right to use protection technology to allow or prevent copying.
        * Remember, it's never okay to sell or make commercial use of a copy that you make.

http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_online_the_law

• It's okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes.
• It's also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R's, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) - but, again, not for commercial purposes.
• Beyond that, there's no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won't usually raise concerns so long as:
  • The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
  • The copy is just for your personal use. It's not a personal use - in fact, it's illegal - to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.

"Record companies have never objected to someone making a copy of a CD for their own personal use." http://www.riaa.com/faq.php

These people. There were more, but it was these two who led them.</flush>

Actually, two of the records are listed as having an original copyright holder as being CBS Records. CBS Records is not an RIAA member, according to their website. Also, many of the companies listed on that link aren't RIAA members, either, they just report to the RIAA. I think among those is Geffen, which is also listed in TFA, but I'm not sure.

Only a fool would pay 2.50 for a ringtone from AT&T as well. Just because other companies overcharge doesn't make Apple's fees reasonable.

You're assuming that Apple has the freedome to make it free. Groups like the RIAA want to control the revenue streams from ringtones -- resulting in a higher cost for a ringtone than it would cost to buy the whole song legally. Said the president of Warner Music, "We think of the ringtone as the new single. It definitely functions as a buzz builder. It reaches a younger audience effectively." Ergo, we're gonna make money off of it!!!!

Might I remind you that statutory licensing is absolutely legitimate, and that the US also has fundamentally equivalent statutory licensing law, and that in fact the Russian law states that AllOfMP3.com has to pay a royalty rate TWENTY TIMES HIGHER than the royalty that US law states that Pandora.com has to pay for sending the exact same MP3 file.

Actually I'd gladly support increasing the Russian royalty rate and massively increasing the US royalty rate to match, if we also eliminated a few defect-by-design nonsense tacked onto the US law (such as the arbitrary prohibition against sending more than three songs from the same artist or more than two songs on the same album in a single hour).

If you think statutory licensing is illegitimate, you are just plain wrong. It is a vital component of the copyright law of probably every country on earth. In fact even the RIAA itself touts statutory licensing as a good thing on their website! (Oops, revision.... the current RIAA text on Statutory Licenses is rather more drab than the text I recall finding a year or more ago, but it still makes the point that the RIAA absolutely admits the legitimacy of statutory licensing as a component of copyright law.) The RIAA is just extremely very self serving on the subject. Any statutory licensing that is helpful and profitable to the RIAA is a Good Thing, and any Statutory Licensing that threatens to PAY and HELP artists while lessening the RIAA's stranglehold gatekeeper position is evil theft. The RIAA very lifeblood is that fact that any new artist pretty much *has* to sign away his soul to an RIAA label to have any chance of making money at all. Any technology or change or law that enables indie artists to be successful without signing into an RIAA contract is a death threat to the RIAA. If new artists don't have to join the RIAA, the RIAA shrivels and dies with no function and no new business.

The Russia situation is a part of that life or death struggle for the RIAA. They don't care about the short term dollars. They are fighting to hold their long term job as the gatekeeper between artists and customers. The way Russian law is set up there is far more freedom for any and all stores or other online music activites to carry any and all artists, RIAA-signed or not, and more opportunity for non-mainstream artists to get exposure, and for royalty payments to go to indie artists without passing through an RIAA middleman. The LAST thing on earth the RIAA wants is for those royalty rates to go up and for artists to get paid good money without the RIAA leeching a slice of the pie. If this were directly about money, the RIAA would GRAB any and all the money they were already legally entitled to as any proper company world, and they would simply be fighting for an increased royalty rate.

Indie stores and indie radio and indie artists and indie popularity equals death to the RIAA. The RIAA doesn't even break even on until an album sells around a quarter million copies. They can only make a profit if they sell a limited number of different mass market albums in a limited number of different genres. But the markets are fracturing... larger numbers of smaller artists in larger numbers of genres and subgenres. Artists who may sell a few tens of thousands of copies to narrower more specialized audiences. An indie might be quite happy with the profits selling 50,000 units, but an RIAA Label would lose their shirts. And collectively these 50,000 unit indie pests are eating into the market for million unit mass market Titteny Spears clones. Anything that threatens the RIAA control... anything that opens the market place... anything that aid the rise of 50,000 unit indie pests... it chokes off the RIAA's air supply. Statutory licensing on the internet... no matter what the royalty rate artists get and no matter how much the RIAA profits off of they royalties on their catalog of old and current artists.... it stores and radio and o

According to http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php, RIAA HQ is at 1025 F ST N.W., 10th Floor, Washington, D.C. 20004

The oddity about the music industry, is that the period when the copy write would make the artist the most money, almost always coincides with the artist collecting the least capital from the signing label. It's not just that we're cheap, there's a great devide between the haves and the have nots, and they're screwing up a good thing so they can keep that divide as wide and unfair as possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_radio#2007_C opyright_Royalty_Changes


According to a report released in March 2007, under the newly proposed rates, annual fees for all station owners are projected to reach $2.3 billion by 2008. This figure is more than four times that for terrestrial radio broadcasters who, due to terms set forth in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, are exempt from the additional royalties imposed on digital broadcasting outlets, which compensate the performers of recorded works. .


Watts are far cheaper than Megabytes, radio stations currently run over 20 minutes of ads per hour to stay profitable. The RIAA is peeing in their own pool. sooner or later, everone's gonna get out, it's not going to be pretty.

http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=a boutus_members

What really needs to happen is for everone to recognise who is an RIAA member and chastise them for it. The RIAA does everthing without recourse under a percieved cloak of anonymity. If people realized that Garth Brooks Record label is suing 12 yr olds and 80 year olds without computers with no remorse, they might have a different perspective on it.

goatse!!!

Scroll down to near the bottom. You'll spot the following paragraph:

• Ease of use, safety from computer viruses and much higher sound quality;
• A safer environment for children, who can be exposed to illicit adult content that is available on many illegal file sharing sites;
• The knowledge that music artists and creators are rightly being compensated.

Groovy!

oh, shut up. everybody knows who the music companies are that make up the riaa. well, sort of...

Keep in mind that the way the RIAA and the music corporations are setup the RIAA will not make money. They will be operated at a loss. The music companies are the ones awarded the settlements since the hold the copyrights. Besides lawyers are relatively cheap when they are on salary. Consider that once the lawyers are on the books they might as well be suing people so they can bring in some money. So while you are correct that the RIAA is not "making money" that is not their purpose. They are there to make money for the record labels. They even say so on their site "The RIAA is an organization committed to helping the music business thrive." http://www.riaa.com/faq.php

http://www.riaa.com/manual/

Care to counter any of that?

Sure, but at this point we are mearly pissing in the wind over a matter of opinion. Since you asked however...

The one VH song to make it onto GH so far was actually a Kinks song (and yes I think the Kinks did it better).

Agreed. At least it should have notes "As made famous by the Kinks." There is plenty in the Van Halen catalog that could have used, but they went with a cover? Weak.

And as much as VH may sell more in the US I would bet that Black Sabbath does much better world wide. Not to mention the fact that Ozzy, a founding member of Sabbath, is a house hold name.

If they did such a tribute Album they would be better off Calling it an "Ozzy Osbourne Tribute" and include Sabbath songs as well instead of the other way around. Even if it was the exact same game, the Ozzy branded one would sell more.

Plus Ozzy/Iommy are more likely to license their work than than Eddy/Dave. But again this is speculation and we will never know.

I think that's unwarranted speculation based on the fact they both have licensed music in Guitar Hero. They seem to not have minded putting in "Bark at the Moon", "Iron Man", "War Pigs" or the afore mentioned Kink's cover, with a VH slant.

The Beatles would be on the list if it were not for the issues that they were not on any other GH (as compared to the other bands listed) and that it would be boring.

I Disagree it would be boring, but that's a personal taste issue. It also wasn't the list I was refering to. You stated "Sabbath was listed as the 85th most influential artists of all times in Rolling Stone, while GnR was 92nd and VH wasn't even on the list." My question is where did the Beatles fall on THAT list?

Collins and Genesis are out because the games, even Rock Band, are about guitar.

Doesn't have to be. Rock Band can focus more on drums, especially if they are focusing on a specific band.

Cream (correct spelling)

Thank you. Brain fart on my part.

Rush on the other hand has 23 gold records and 14 platinum (3 multi-platinum) records placing them fifth, behind The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, KISS and Aerosmith, for the most consecutive gold and platinum albums by a rock band ...

I DO believe you but could you please provide a link?

and ranked 78th in U.S. album sales according to the RIAA with sales of 24.5 million units.

24.5 Million units across their entire catalog? Appitite for Destruction sold 15 million units by itself. Add in both the Use your illusion albums, and you have 29 million units sold and 42 songs.

I think I found your source for the RIAA sales, and if you follow the link you'll notice Guns 'N Roses with 38.5 million sold to date, and farther up (towards the top) Van Halen is sitting Above U2 and just below Metallica at 56.5 million units sold. Which leads me to believe that a game based on those bands would be more successfull than one based on Black Sabbath (at 15 million), and since you drug them into it Rush (with 24.5 million sales) as well. Do we need to keep debating our opinions on the matter? or can we Agree to disagree on this one?

I'm pretty anti-piracy and used to be involved in the movement in Thailand, but in truth, people are ripping off the RIAA's music and not the artists', since the copyright for the music is generally signed over to the agency. The artist is just "for hire." Reference. That doesn't make using the work without license any better: I was just clarifying the matter.

You are so wrong, it's unbelievable. How does painfully wrong information get modded up like this?

To put the $1 billion in perspective, the net revenue for all music sales in 2006 in the U.S. reported by the RIAA was only $11.5 billion. That's revenue, not profit.

To quote the RIAA presidentCary Sherman (regarding a different, but similar case):

"This is an ongoing strategy, and the way to let people know that there is a risk of consequences is to continue the program. You don't set up a speed trap for one day and stop enforcement thereafter. It has to be consistent."

http://www.riaa.com/about/leadership/default.asp

Mitch Bainwol
Chairman And CEO

Cary Sherman
President

Board of Directors
http://www.riaa.com/about/leadership/board.asp

Member labels (you can look up their leadership individually)
http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp

Layne

http://www.riaa.com/about/leadership/default.asp

Mitch Bainwol
Chairman And CEO

Cary Sherman
President

Board of Directors
http://www.riaa.com/about/leadership/board.asp

Member labels (you can look up their leadership individually)
http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp

Layne

http://www.riaa.com/about/leadership/default.asp

Mitch Bainwol
Chairman And CEO

Cary Sherman
President

Board of Directors
http://www.riaa.com/about/leadership/board.asp

Member labels (you can look up their leadership individually)
http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp

Layne

The statutory license does not exclude directly negotiated licensing deals as I understand it. No one can forbid direct licensing deals--the right to engage in these kinds of agreements cannot be circumvented by Congress or anyone else. In other words services are free to use Creative Commons licensed material or material under any other license or agreement. If a service exclusively uses such material, it certainly seems that they would be exempt from SoundExchange fees and reporting. If only some of their content falls into this royalty-free category, then what's to stop them from excluding that portion from their SoundExchange reporting? SoundExchange cannot collect fees on directly licensed material, only that which is used under the statutory license...

There are two alternatives to this regime: either artists and copyright owners don't get paid, or they get paid directly by the streaming services. I don't think the streaming services want to be in the business of trying to find all these guys. I recognize that SoundExchange may not be completely worthy of your trust in providing royalties, but there is no other organization that is geared toward paying performing artists and sound recording copyright owners the money that Congress indicated that they are entitled to under the statutory license. So either webcasters have the choice of going with the existing royatly structure, or they can put together their own negotiated system, which may be a good thing, but that process won't be free either...

Don't be so sure! Check the list of RIAA members--it's pretty long.

Not really.

Statutory licensing works by creating an exemption to copyright law for services (webcasters for example) who meet certain requirements. The service does not have to negotiate with the content owner who owns rights to the song/recording--they play whatever music they want and pay a flat fee. I'm guessing the "license" for regular radio will work the same way.

And you didn't even multiply with 2 :o) Ok, I admit that would be rather insane --- though you'd admit it would sort of work! :o) So let's be generous, and say $5000 for downloading one movie illegally, and then progressing to maybe $30000 for the bad cases (many, many downloads?). Of course, the entire *point* with a fine is that the copyright holder doesn't get a dime. The entire fine goes to whatever the local democracy.

If someone won't or can't pay, there is always litter to be collected at the local wood/street/beach/subway :o)

Not that it really matters, because I can't really see a way to prove that person X did the downloading. Wish there was a way, but we really can't.

So RIAA estimated in 2002 that 2.6 billion files were illegally downloaded a month. They've sued less than 20,000 people, but were sueing about 750/month at the peak. 750/2.6billion = 1/3466666. Guessing roughly $10 for the price of the infringing material, that would be $69,333,320 in fines. That's even worse than the statutory damages we have now.

Lets not forget the spirit of copyright. It is actually a beautiful instrument as the earlier poster had mentioned : "Copyright and other intellectual property mechanisms exist to promote the sharing of novel and other valuable works". According to Wikipedias History of Copyright Law, England's Statute of Anne (1710) promotes the author not distributor. The RIAA says it lobbies for the artist, but "The recording industry is able to pay exploitatively low percentages as all the record companies pay artists very similar amounts. Therefore if an artist wants to release their music there is no viable alternative other than to sign away their music to these organisations. This might eventually change in the future with the advent of web based music sales. Services may evolve to allow musicians to sell their music via the web without the need for a record company in its present form and consequently reap a fairer share of the profits from their music." (quote from the Record Industry wiki) Clearly this means the RIAA lobbies for the distributor, hence, this practice is in direct violation of the spirit of copyright, which on that alone, discredits any moral authority from the RIAA (aside from their already heinous behavior). There is no reason why we should not jail the RIAA. The RIAA is an active participant in corporate bought law, which comes down to bribery, a violation of United States Code, Title 18 (Criminal), Chapter 11, Section 201. Mitch Bainwol should be able to get sentenced from anywhere from 0-12 months, unfortunately, but its not in the realm of impossiblity. There is also a stautory maximum fine of $10k or $20k. Right from RIAA's About Us is the quote "The Washington Post has called Bainwol a "Top D.C. Lobbyist and Man in Demand."".

>Suppose, for example, that someone's Valuable Intellectual Property were, through pure coincidence, protected by the key
>"sony.com", by the contents of http://www.riaa.com/ or by the image of Mickey Mouse?

I think the only successful attack against the **AA will come from within. One of its own members will see the light, recognize the organization as competition, and destroy it.

It occurs to me that if Digg and its ilk can be dealt "take down" notices for carrying a particular representation of data, then that situation could also be turned around.

Suppose, for example, that someone's Valuable Intellectual Property were, through pure coincidence, protected by the key "sony.com", by the contents of http://www.riaa.com/ or by the image of Mickey Mouse?

The RIAA's website contains a list of members, which has been disputed in the past, as Matador Records, Fat Wreck Chords[4] Lookout Records, Epitaph Records and Bloodshot Records (who are not members) have been listed there.[5] Some may have been automatically included in the list as they were using RIAA members as distributing labels.
--from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA

Do not be fooled - boycotting will not work.

I wouldn't be surprised if he was considered a hero in some circles.

What kind of a moron sees this funny?

Remember, when you dislike something that 'RIAA' does, this is who RIAA is http://www.riaa.com/about/members/default.asp

Your money talks. Let them hear it.

This is a great scam for someone who wants to commit fraud on a national scale. Send people letters claiming that they breached copyright law and demand a settlement. Offer an opportunity for settlement for $2000. If they get a lawyer, drop any claim. If they ignore it, write it off. If it costs you a dollar per letter and 0.1% of people accept your "offer", a million letters will net you a million dollars. Maybe this is the new business model for big media.

Um...hello?

According to the conspiracy people things similar to this happen all the time, with the big cooperations making sure that for example things to replace the fossil fuels does never get publicly known, I doubt there is very much truth in this, but this little story might make me think just a little more of the conspiracy theories.

What I'd like to know is what authority does the RIAA have in these matters ? Can they legally "defend" an independent label ?

Has anyone else caught wind of the NIN viral marketing that they are doing right now for a new album? They "GET IT" with how to use the new media and Internet. If the **AA actually got it we would not be having news stories like this.

Nothing Records is a member of the RIAA.

RIAA member page

So if a company is run by the President and CEO, what do the board members do? They oversee the performance of the President and the CEO. They don't like it, they replace them. Now heres the RIAA board of directors. Here they are:

Polly Anthony Geffen Records
Mitch Bainwol RIAA
Glen Barros Concord Records
Steve Bartels Island Records
Victoria Bassetti EMI Recorded Music
Jose Beha

Stood up to the mighty army of the RIAA...

The people whose actions so many of us detest, who sue disabled pensioners and little girls who don't even own computers, who whine and bitch and claim the sky is falling every time some new technology comes along, who engage in price fixing, who rip off the artists they claim to represent while simultaneously saying that they're engaging in anti-piracy activity for their benefit (all the time without missing a beat and smiling, smiling, smiling), who LIE to the media and inflate and invent the losses they say they're cost by the eeeeevil pirates...

THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT THE RIAA.

THEY ARE THE 'MAJOR' RECORD COMPANIES.

(And their number is legion)

Suing your own customers already has a working business model.

I asked for proof because he didn't give any... one anecdotal example does not equal proof and quoting the RIAA's own list does not equal proof of RIAA membership either. That's why their list is referred to as "Distributed Labels of Reporting Companies" and not "RIAA Members". Do you understand what that means or do you need me to parse it for you?

The RIAA would love to have you believe that their list represents actual members - and obviously you believe - but it's NOT. It's yet another of their misleading representations that makes them look bigger and more powerful than they really are.

As for RIAA Radar, yeah... I should have mentioned that too. I used to go by that as well until I realized that they are simply using the same damn "Distributed Labels" list that the RIAA is publishing. Net result? You're not buying stuff from hundreds of labels who truly are independant simply because you can't see through the RIAA's semantic ruse. Meanwhile, the RIAA is laughing because they've convinced you to boycott many of the very people you want to support.

No... if you want to be certain of who is RIAA and who isn't you're going to have to show me their actual paid membership list. Now THAT I will accept as proof... but you can't show me that because the RIAA won't give you that list. Their actual membership is so secret that members don't even pay their dues directly to the RIAA - you're supposed to pay them "in confidence" by way of their accountants. Why do you suppose they do that?!?

If you want to cite Beggar's Banquet then show me where they paid dues to the RIAA, or where they are owned by a company that paid dues to the RIAA, or where they actually admit to being an RIAA member. But then you'll also have to explain to me how one single example extends to GP's claim of "thousands of labels". Good luck with either of those tasks...

Yeah! Just like I can "scrub" FOSS and get away with it. Good thing there's no big organization trying to stop me.