Slashdot Mirror
Non-RIAA Record Companies?
d4 asks: "I've seen a list of RIAA members, but what I'd really like to know is: what record companies are not RIAA members? Many smaller labels are subsidiaries of larger companies, and it's not always easy to tell where affiliations lie. So if I'm going to boycott the RIAA, from whom can I still buy music?" If there are any of you out there preparing a protest for the RIAA's treatment of Napster, then you may want to read this one.
a few people have mentioned a number of non-RIAA labels, including Kill Rock Stars, Alternative Tentacles, and Seeland productions.
all of these labels, along with about thirty other independents are distributed by an independent distributor, Mordam Records. their entire catalog is available for mail order delivery through an online interface (no Amazon or CDNOW), and nearly all of their catalog that is available in CD format can also be downloaded as mp3s.
the money from stuff sold by Mordam goes only to Mordam, the label, and the artist. nobody else. fuck the middlemen of the world.
How about Dsicipline? They're UK based, but most of their sales are in the US, so theymaintain a US office. They're also the folks behind bootlegtv.com . Discipline always allows artists to maintain the phonographic copyrightin their own work. Their founder, guitar legend Robert Fripp, has recently spoken out against RIAA. http://www.disciplineglobalmobile.com
Beavis, what the hell are you talking about? TVT bought WaxTrax in 92. Wax Trax History/Discography page Nothing Records was formed after Reznor's difficulties with TVT, not when he signed. NIN FAQ regarding Nothing Records And this is moderated to 5 - Informative?
"Taking a cue from music-bootlegging teenagers, sewing enthusiasts have discovered that they too can steal copyrighted material over the Internet.
/ patterns03.htm
``I'm only sharing (the patterns) with my friends and their friends,'' said Carla Conry, a mother of six who runs PatternPiggiesUnite!, a 350-person underground Net community of stitchers who swap patterns."
http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs
Cleopatra Records Metropolis Records Tooth and Nail Records Phat Wreck Cords Alternative Tentacles(already mentioned I know) Dill Records I can't remeber the exact names but: Superchunk has their own label that is nonRIAA and so does WolfPac(a local band here in Philly) Thats all I can think of at the moment...
when someone comes close to violating the GNU license, all hell breaks out. But when another license (illegally copying music), because it's going to cost users $$$$, it's unfair. so....basically, it's not ok to break licenses, unless it directly affects your pocket....what real, legal justification do users have for pirating music?
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
- ever noticed how mcdonalds serves nothing but coke, taco bell only pepsi, KFC only pepsi, and so on? I think this is because the soft drink
companies together own about 80% of the fast food joints in the nation.
While Pepsi does have many subsidiaries, including KFC and Pizza Hut, that's not the case with Coke.It's my understanding that (among others) Wendy's, Burger King, and McDonalds are independent of Coca Cola.
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
--
--
This web site will cure all your ailments.
Kosmic Free Music Foundation is group of artists. Their music can be downloaded from WWW-site of KFMF and MP3.com and you can buy their CDs and CD-ROMs. And of cause, you can copy their music to all your friends. I am sure, they have nothing to do with RIAA.
m l
s ic_foundati.html
Here is relevant URLs:
http://www.kosmic.org/
http://www.kosmic.org/music.php3
http://www.mp3.com/kosmic
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/126/kosmic_art.ht
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/67/kosmic_free_mu
Juhapekka "naula" Tolvanen - http://iki.fi/juhtolv
Similarly, Noise Records and Massacre Records. Virtually everything I listen to is on one of those 4 labels.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I'm not clear on why people are so upset that the RIAA has taken legal action to prevent illegal appropriation of copyrighted materials. Granted, Napster could be described as a file sharing system, but it ONLY exists to share MP3 files, a good portion of which are protected by copyright. If Napster is able to protect copyrighted materials from being shared and chooses not to, then that could constitute neglect. If you don't like the laws, get them changed; laws are part of the social contract, and you can't obey them selectively. I would suggest reading Locke's Second Treatise for more eloquent discussion about this, as i can hardly do it justice.
Okay, gang... I'll admit my ignorance before by endorsing Fat Wreck when in fact they're a member of the RIAA. I've sent an e-mail to them, which goes as follows:
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:39:39 PDT
From: Adam Fogler afogler@----.---.edu
To: mailbag@fatwreck.com
Subject: Fat Wreck Chords a member of the RIAA? Say it ain't so!
Greetings, my name is Adam Fogler and I've been a devoted fan of your label for a couple of years now. I have stacks of CDs from various Fat Wreck artists, including NOFX, Good Riddance, Lagwagon, and others. This morning as I was reading an article on Slashdot.org about independant record companies and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), I was quick to post a comment endorsing your label as free from this corporation's questionable ethics and anti-consumer policies. However, upon inspection of the member list, available at http://www.riaa.com/About-Members-1.cfm I saw your company there.
I find it somewhat hypocritical for your label and your bands to espouse the ideals of anti-corporatism and "not selling out", when you are in fact part of an organization that is under fire for price gouging and other unethical practices. I've been such a fan of your label partly because I wanted to support the idea that a company need not buckle under corporate pressure in order to be successful.
My queston is as follows... how can you justify being a member of this corporation and yet continue to release albums expressing ideals otherwise? One song that comes to mind is "Dinosaurs Will Die" by NOFX. If Fat Mike is certain of the coming destruction of the "parasitic music industry", why does his own company, and Epitaph, remain members of said industry? If you could please answer these questions, I would be most grateful.
Sincerely,
Adam Fogler
I'll hopefully get a response from them answering my question. I did get an e-mail this morning from one of the people at Fat Free Radio thanking me for the original post. After they read the above e-mail they may be singing a different tune, no pun intended. ;)
Trying to save the world, one punk at a time...
Adam "Fogie" Fogler -- Professional Paid College Student
The guys at Fat Wreck Chords sent a prompt reply to my e-mail questioning their inclusion on the RIAA list. It goes as follows:
Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000 14:14:23 -0700
From: Fat Wreck Chords mailbag@fatwreck.com
To: Adam Fogler afogler@---.---.edu
Subject: Re: Fat Wreck Chords a member of the RIAA? Say it ain't so!
Adam,
We our not part of the RIAA. We are a label that uses RED (though not exclusively) as a distributor, hence maybe that is why our name appears on the list. Still we've never signed anything with the RIAA. That being said, FAT WRECK CHORDS does believe in copyright and is against piracy.
Now on a side note, I hope you are running your computer on LINUX or some other open source software?
floyd
So there you have it... interpret as you wish. They recognize the validity of Open Source, which I think speaks volumes.
I'd like to respond to some of the issues brought up in thread thread with regard to punk in general as well as Fat Wreck Chords. It is true, there are some terrible punk bands. Some of them do just scream like "teenage rebels". However you will find terrible groups in any genre you encounter. I listen to punk rock not only for the amount of energy that comes out of the music, but for the message that comes across. I listen to a lot of Good Riddance, and their music (yes, it is music) hits a lot of levels that pop-rock can only dream of. The message conveyed is not "go get a piercing and piss off your parents," but would be better expressed as "don't judge people by their race, tolerate those who are different, be open-minded, stop hurting each other." Some of the bands you might take offense to would be the corporate-bred pop-punk bands released these past couple of years to ride the mainstream "punk" phase. Bands like Blink 182 and Offspring decided it was more cost-effective to let the mainstream teenyboppers call the shots rather that maintain a little integrity. Oh well... to each his own.
With regard to Fat Wreck's practices, up until this little RIAA thing I've had no troubles with them, and haven't heard otherwise from any source. I've read several interviews from bands within the label who are totally satisfied with releasing records on Fat. Consider this snippet from an interview with Russ Rankin, lead singer of Good Riddance:
Rob: How is your relationship with FAT? Do they treat you well?
Russ: Yeah, definitely! It's really good. We had a three-record deal, this is our fourth. They basically told us that as long as we keep making records they'll keep putting them out. They let us do what we want. They give us financial support. Yeah, it's been great.
I know all of this may sound like a lame little commercial, but I've never had trouble with these guys... their prices are decent, the music is great, and a portion of their profits go to charities like Food Not Bombs. Try and weasel that out of the majors.
Anyways, I doubt anyone will bother with this thread anyways... but I've said my piece, and I'll continue to buy stuff from Fat Wreck.
Peace and Punk Rock!
Adam "Fogie" Fogler -- Professional Paid College Student
NOFX releases most of their full-lengths through Epitaph, but they aren't contractually obligated (7 record deal, etc etc) to them. A few other bands on the Fat label may have some releases through Epitaph, but Fat is an autonomous company run by Fat Mike himself. :)
p.s. I did link to Fat's site on my original post... yours seems to be broken. ;)
Hasta Lasagna!
Adam "Fogie" Fogler -- Professional Paid College Student
Well crud, serves me right for not reading the list of members first. Fat Wreck is the last label I would expect to see on that page. I think this warrants an e-mail to then asking how they can justify being involved with such an organization, given their views on the "parasitic music industry."
Apologies for my ignorance... my punk rock zealotry nearly exceeds my passion for Linux. ;)
To the Pine-mobile, and make it snappy!
Adam "Fogie" Fogler -- Professional Paid College Student
I'm no friend of Napster. I'm boycotting the RIAA because of their treatment of musicians and customers! Oh, and because records sound better :)
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
To the best of my knowledge Matador Records is in no way associated with the RIAA. They also are the home to a number of really great artists. Yo La Tengo, which is on their label, is one of my favorites. Older music by Guided by Voices, another favorite band of mine, is also still on their label, although I believe more recently GBV moved to TVT.
Anyone notice that Nitro (which i assume is the same thing as Nitro Records), the record label owned by Dexter Holland, lead sing of The Offspring, is on the list? That is definitely a conflict of interest there. But they sold out, so I dont really care about them. Also, on a sad note to all my punk rock friends, both Epitaph and Fat Wrech Chords are on there. Of course, nowadays those two arent really "underground" anyway. The really small labels are most likely still free.
-- Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people. Guns just make bullets go really, really fast.
That Honest Don's is RIAA too, since that's a Fat spinoff.....
Brian
Most underground music is non-RIAA, particularly most punkrock, like Epitaph Records, Fat Records, and all the smaller and more obscure labels like Slap a Ham and Taang!
-Ben
-Ben
bensmith@biz1.net
You just don't get it, do you?
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Well, Simple Machines doesn't really exist as a record label anymore. But, killing two birds with one stone, you can find them on the web at:
The Machine at Insound
It's recommended reading for those of you who say hilarious things like "bands can make money from touring".
Easy way to avoid the RIAA: Buy non-american music. :)
---
If 90% of everything isn't crap, your standards are too high.
Your opinions on punk are the obvious product of your having read a book, or maybe even several books. Most likely these books contained many thousands of words, possibly with pictures. They seem to have ensured that you missed the point entirely.
Were the Sex Pistols "more a parody of music than music"? Sure, if you want to slice it that way. Did their manager, Malcom McLaren, treat them primarily as a guerrilla marketing tool for his own commercial interests? Absolutely. Did they incidentally tap into a lot of the significant and honest rage burgeoning in the hearts and minds of teens in the UK and abroad? You bet they did.
You seem to know nothing about what happened after 1979. Plenty of bands sold out, but there are plenty more still maintaining--probably ones you've never heard of. It's not about parodying music. It's about keeping the music simple, putting on cheap shows, exemplifying the DIY ethic, and (incidentally) fostering a sense of community that Deadheads, goths, ravers and B-boys/girls would all be likely to recognize.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
A-fucking-men. As if Coil records aren't hard enough to find anyway, just based on the band's perverse sense of marketing humour. I've taken a long time to build up the Coil and Current 93 collection I have, and if I didn't have a pretty good job it would have bankrupted me long ago.
At the same time I feel a sort of fanatical loyalty to these guys that usually precludes even thinking about trading their stuff in MP3 format. Maybe the secret of continued revenues is for major labels to turn all pop music fans into rabid Coil types.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
Maybe because some of us are very, very unhappy with the service we've received from WSD (Current 93 vinyl arriving warped, scratched and/or badly water-damaged) and Soleilmoon (serious problems with Muslimgauze subscriptions, even before Bryn died). Sorry, but I don't think either of those are the paragon of how an independent label should behave, at least not when dealing with their retail customers.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
I don't quite see where you found that Deutsche Grammophon (or whatever it's a subsidiary of) isn't making classical music any longer. I buy a couple of DG CDs a month, including some new releases (as in July 2000). They most definitely are releasing new stuff, including some under their Archiv Produktion sublabel.
All the songs I listen to have been downloaded Napster. No money has been going to RIAA.
Of course, to be consistent, I'm also boycotting FSF, because I disagree with their philosophy. That's why I will be integrating their code into my closed source software. That'll teach them.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention...all the sites I linked to above feature MP3s. So if you want to support bands that embrace MP3s as a distribution method and a way to get exposure, go there!
Merge
Touch & Go
Dischord
Jade Tree
... most all punk rock ('cause that's what I listen to.)
(jfb)
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
Unfortunately, they're listed on the RIAA member page. Who would have thought?! Bad news for Zappa fans, huh?
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Hm.. I haven't seen it either. Maybe people in 2015 won't understand what Marty McFly was trying to order any more than the people from 1955 did.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Man, don't worry if you're a vegetarian; it's been a long time since Mcdonalds sold anything resembling meat.. In fact, it's been a long time since they sold anything even approximating bread..
Once about a year ago I went to McDonald's for old time's sake, since I hadn't been since I was about 9 years old.. holy cow, what worthless horseshit! The "bread" is this yellow, hollow foam stuff, that completely dissolves as soon as you put pressure on it.. very disconcerting.. and the "meat"? I don't even want to go there..
Also, anyone remember the last time they've seen a white person on a McDonald's commercial?
Praise the Force Field! Praise the Laser Project! Slackware Loon #19830573
In my favorite such commercial, our hero Philip Morris gives money to a meals on wheels program in which somebody takes meals to an elderly lady and sings her old Italian songs. Every time I see that ad, I can't help thinking I bet her husband died of lung cancer.
--
Hey, Lookout Records deserves some respect, they are not in the list, an also they are a pretty good punk rock label without any corporate enviroment and charge little for their CD's, and I think some of their bands are also pretty good, if not better in average than Fat Wreck chords.
Alos, they are an older label, even Operation Ivy released some albums with them.
Hey, Lookout Records deserves some respect, they are not in the list, an also they are a pretty good punk rock label without any corporate enviroment and charge little for their CD's, and I think some of their bands are also pretty good, if not better in average than Fat Wreck chords.
Also, they are an older label, even Operation Ivy released some albums with them.
When it comes to music, I have noticed that geeks arent too "with it." Now, I don't mean _all_ geeks, just the great bulk of them. The only real subset I have seeen them know about is electronic/industrial. If they don't listen to that, they tend to listen to more main stream punk, metal etc. I think this is a real shame. If you can't expand your musical horizons to explore the depth of music that is contained in the indie scene, then where is your thirst for knowledge? If you want to start somewhere, perhaps southern.com is a good place. They have info on lots of indie bands and whatever is hot in the indie scene. Just put in indie music when you do a web search and see what comes up. There is so much of this stuff out there, that I often find it silly that geeks aren't into it. Napster too generally does not contain many indie artists. If you want pop music, you can go to napster but people telling me to use napster to find something that fit my tastes just wont happen because I don't like mainstream music and despise corporate rock and have so for years. So, nuff said. If you wish to attack me, do so.
_joshua_
I just think there is more to music than a thumping bass line... Ok, that was a bit trollish but I do not like most electronic music. I think your opinion about rock being dead is because you havent been exposed to rock that inst mainstream. Also, to keep yourself into one single genre is somewhat closed minded don't you think? You would think "geeks" of all people would be the ones who have a thirst for knowledge and explore all the different music routes.
_joshua_
or dare I say it, the Mekons --an english art-punk band, who has slowly muted into a country act
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
To invoke the "civil disobedience" moniker on this one is a waste. If music were only sold to certain people, and you chose to distribute it's message among the unpriveledged, perhaps you could find an angle. The problem is, under your argument, anyone who profits from the sale of copies (coders, authors, etc.) deserve such treatment.
As to a corporation's right to make money, you're right. They only have a right to compete for our money. You like it, buy it. If not, don't. Steal if that's your thing, but don't pawn it off as revolutionary or rightous.
Actually, I think she's just about to release another artist's work...It's some blues guy or something. She doesn't seem to have a website up for the label yet, so i can't verify that for you...
-- Deputy Dan will find us no matter how far away we go.
Rather Interesting Records serves as something of a sister site to Fax. It's run by, and releases records primarily by, a guy by the name of Uwe Schmidt. Typical of electronic music artists, he goes under a variety of pseudonyms, the most well-known being Atom Heart and Lassigue Bendthaus(A recent NYTimes article about LB's latest release, a collection of Kraftwerk songs covered as Brazilian music, can be found here).
There's an official Rather Interesting site, but it hasn't been updated in a while. In yet another bit of shameless self-promotion, there is a sister site to 2350.org, at www.datacide.org.
-- Deputy Dan will find us no matter how far away we go.
Warp [...] They are based in Germany [...]
Being quite a big WARP fan, I can't let this blooper go by uncommented... WARP are an U.K. label, and Boards of Canada are signed to them (and SKAM records, also in England), along with Aphex Twin, Autechre, Plaid, Plone, Broadcast, Jimi Tenor, Mira Calix, Two Lone Swordsmen, Squarepusher, Red Snapper, etc etc etc...
Matador is just distributing their stuff in the US of A... :)
(As far as US distribution goes, most of it is handled by Nothing records - dunno about the RIAA-connection of them... but as always, this only goes for America - in Europe you can always order directly from WARPMart... :)
If you're looking for a good German independent label check out Mille Plateaux, who really put out a consistently yummy palette of Ambient and Experimental Electronics - highly recommended, especially Vladislav Delay, Gas, Alva Noto, Sturm and probably the rest of their roster I haven't checked out yet...
np: Jimi Tenor - Theme Sax (Sähkömies)
(Originally on Sähkö, re-released by WARP)
As always under permanent deconstruction.
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
Marillion is releasing their next album with no help from any labels. They are supporting it with pre-sales to fans. They took a chance in trying this, and the fans came through and MArillion has the capitol to get working. Look here for the details.
Only one label AFAIK has come out publicly in favor of Napster. Palm is a label started two or three years ago by former Island Records head Chris Blackwell - the visionary responsible for bringing us Bob Marley, U2, Traffic, Tom Waits, Cat Stevens, The Cranberries, Tricky, and projects like Manga, Rykodisc, and Sputnik7. At PlugIn last week, Hank Barry (Napster CEO) and Blackwell announced Palm's wholehearted support of peer-to-peer sharing of music. Blackwell has been maintaining the Bob Marley estate since the late 70's, and claims that, after staying level for nearly 20 years, sales of Marley music began climbing 2-3 years ago. Wisely, he said he wasn't sure if there was a direct correlation, though it seemed to him that the mp3 sharing phenomenon (both pre- and post-napster) was hardly hurting sales. Then they went a step further. Blackwell placed the newest single from artist Elwood (personally, not a fan...) on sputnik7. Napster featured the single "Sundown" as the first label-endorsed peer-to-peer share EVER!
WaxTrax! is in fact owned by TVT (and also notable as Metallica's label before they hit it big, if I remember correctly). Cleopatra (and its associated labels, Hypnotix(?) and a couple of others ) should be RIAA-free. Of course, there's always Metropolis (www.metropolis-records.com), which fronts for a relatively large number of overseas and domestic techno/electro/indusrial/ebm/etc acts including Front242, Project Pitchfork, VNV Nation, Numb, Mentallo, Haujobb (the list is pretty big these days), they don't appear to be a RIAA member. Besides, they're licensing mostly from labels that couldn't be part of RIAA 'cause they're not "of America." :-)
I mean come on, that's pathetic, truly pathetic. Are you going to be boycotting the FSF when they sue someone for violating the GPL? Why not, its the exact same thing...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Hey Everyone Ubiquity Records in San Franscisco is a great record label if you like Trip Hop, Acid Jazz, Drum n Bass, Jungle, Rargroove and funk type stuff. I own almost there entire catalog and havent found a bad song yet. And Best of all as far as I cant tell they are 100% independant, so check them out...
http://www.ubiquityrecords.com
-{AuRa}
Bull.
There's nothing wrong with a record label inherently -- they provide a service that an artist is unwilling or incapable of providing.
Not every musician can or wants to handle the details of booking, merchandising, etc. A label can provide that. If they think a musician is promising, they can front them money to help them get their album released, and get it on store shelves and noticed. That's a pretty nice thing to do -- so naturally they want a cut of the profits and rights to leverage the music.
The problem, of course, is when labels begin using their power (they control the money, of course) to influence the music and/or create bad contracts and/or stifle technology.
Look at Daemon Records for an example of a benevolent record label.
darius
Napster's buycott list is the wrong list to be using. It represents _bands_ that support Napster, not record labels. If you look carefully, you might see something interesting:
Ben Folds Five, one of the bands on Napsters Buycott, is on epic records. This is owned by Sony, a member ofthe RIAA
Remeber that Naspters Buycott is designed to _support_ the RIAA, not send money away from it.
It is not a good list to use if you wish to boycott the RIAA.
Or at least, are there movie studios that are not part of the DeCSS lawsuits?
www.undergroundresistance.com
excellent techno label that sony decided to steal a song from (dj rolando's knights of the jaguar) by doing a note-for-note "cover"
The Wu Master
They still own Frito Lay, IIRC, because chip snackfoods were experiencing a boom a few years ago when they spun off the rest, while fast food was flat.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
don't worry, i was talking about radio country. i actually have a neko case album and love it. i've been meaning to grab some more.
get a grip, moron. just because you don't like punk doesn't mean it's not good music. i'm not a huge punk fan myself but it's a lot better than country and other radio crap.
get a clue before telling someone their music choice sucks.
http://www.sympathyrecords.com/
It was pretty clear to everybody else, too...
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Wasn't Tab made by Coke? Not that I've seen it since about... 1988 or so...
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Fat Wreck Chords just signed LTJ, and Mojo has the Pilfers and RBF
http://www.dioxidized.com/music/record_labels.html
parasol records has a bunch of indie band cds for about $10US. sarge is my favorite group on their distribution list (i think they record on mud records, but parasol does the distribution).
These lists don't appear to be totally reliable. Some of the labels listed as independent, found on the sites you refer to, can also be found on the RIAA's list of members.
For example, 4AD is listed on both:
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/external/T.Wi cks/ill/
http://www.riaa.com/About-Members-1.cfm
If you boycott RIAA records on the grounds that they persecute Napster, then you will be directly contradicting the "Buycott" Napster is attempting to organize, to demonstrate that Napster is not about stealing sales from the record industry. Of course, if you just want to boycott the RIAA labels 'cuz they're a bunch of wankers and parasites, that's just fine.
does that mean you don't mind if someone steals your copywrite? I believe independant labels copywrite thier materials as well.
I guess what I'm saying is how happy do you think these small labels are going to be to have a bunch of music pirating geeks supporting them now?
I'm a big fan of thrill jockey, they have titles by bands such as Tortoise, Trans Am, Isotope 217, the Sea and Cake, etc. It's a small Chicago label that to the best of my knowledge has no affiliation with the RIAA.
Revolver is one of the biggest distributors of independent music, and they have an online presence at www.midheaven.com.
Also there is Clamazon, (www.clamazon.com) an online mailorder place with lots of indies and Forced Exposure (www.forcedexposure.com) for the techno-leet and psychonauts.
BTW, last time I checked, Matador is distributed (owned?) by Capitol.
I like fugazi. A lot. Go to Southern Records website for a directory of all the best and least RIAA affiliated bands and lables in the world.
Chris
well, i know people that run record labels in the independent music scenes and they dont sell their cds for over 8$. Boycott Tower records, Boycott Sony, and then go out and learn about independent music that doesn't get apprecidated because some major label didnt pick up on them. Most people don't even know anything about a lot of the smaller bands out there because they just listen to all of the crap that record labels feed them. Go try to find bands that are on underground labels. Use napster to do it. Boycott the major labels and prove that napster has a good purpose by actually buying an independent release.
-thinkpol
Uh, no.
This is my opinion, but I'd MUCH rather have the original CD than an EXACT duplicate of it. You get the label, the liner-art, tray card, etc. And I think that's what she means.
I seem to remember Sub Pop getting bought out by Geffen during the Grunge craze.
Hmm.. It seems that a lot of the non-RIAA labels are punk labels. Well, here's another one: Hopeless Records They have a bunch of different styles of bands, and one of them (Mustard Plug) has also spoken out in support of Napster.
As far as the artificial inflation if album price, yeah, there aren't really any labels that altogether don't, but dischord is really good about it. Most, if not all of their disks and records have a blurb on the back saying "This CD is $11.00 postpaind from Dischord Records, 3819 Beecher Street. NW, Washington DC, 20007" And so any stores that sell Dischord stuff usually have it as the cheapest stuff there, since if they overcharge you can just get it straight from the label.
I have to put in a plug for Discipline Global Mobile, which has signed a lot of progressive rock greats (Robert Fripp/King Crimson, Bill Bruford, Peter Hammill and Tony Levin to name but a few). Check out their business aims to get a feel for their attitude towards the recording industry.
From their FAQ:
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
And they have re-released the Bill Hicks collection.
For those of you unaware, Bill Hicks was a comedian, and he said a lot of funny stuff. He also had a really, really, really interesting outlook on the musicians of his time (Vanilla Ice, Motley Crue, you know, late 80's-early 90's).
Sorry, I just felt the need to point that out.
Dan
I think they have their own independent label..
just my blog and pix
Well come on...
Propagandhi (vegan punk) + label owned by fat mike = hipocracy all over.
Come on. Let's face the fact that TVT has always been jerky anyway. I hardly think they're representative of the rest of the indie labels.
Icourse Recordings (http://www.icourse.com) offers worldwide distribution to artists who have recorded and packaged a CD but want distribution. They are not members of the RIAA and do not distribute through RIAA members.
I'm not sure which list you're looking at (I'm looking at this one), but I don't see them in alphabetical order or with a ctrl-f search. Perhaps you're responding to the wrong message?
I believe Kranky, Constellation and spinArt are independent and not members of the RIAA. Constellation (Canadian) has Do Make Say Think and Godspeed You Black Emperor. Kranky bands include Low and Pan American and I think they're the American distributor for GYBE. spinArt is home to the Poster Children and The Wedding Present, among others.
There's a list of non-RIAA afilliated bands on napster's site.
--
Homer: "No beer, No TV make Homer something something";
Marge: "Go crazy?";
Homer: "Don't mind if I do!"
arcane for life
Vegans boycotting McDonalds? What were they going to buy anyways? IIRC the cookies are vegan, but really...
That's like getting the Amish to boycott the RIAA and MPAA.
Yeah, when you look at distribution also, then you're probably really screwed. Best to just buy a harmonica to entertain yourself. I wonder who distributes Righteous Babe records.
I believe Matador is independent. Gotta love Pizzicato Five.
Lookout! Records, which produce some of the best punk bands ever, 4AD, which does dead can dance, and On Her Own, which is Ani DiFranco's label, are not a part of RIAA, I don't think. Support your local scene! Buy independent music!
--Danka, who likes kids, but wouldn't want to eat one
My bad. Don't know what I was thinking there.
:)
I have to second that Mille Plateau recommendation, btw.
Direct action by the people is a valid tool to use in trying to get the law changed. During Prohibition, a totally stupid decision that ignored the will of the people, millions and millions drank. When it became blindingly obvious that the law wasn't working, THEN AND ONLY THEN was it repealed.
There's also something called jury nullification. If people called to act as juries simply stop convicting people accused of breaking laws the jurors think are unfair, EVENTUALLY the prosecutors just won't bother. Working on abstract political terms is fine, but direct action has always been a valid tool. <br><br>
There's also something called <b>personal responsibility</b>. If someone comes up to you on the street and offers to sell you a digital camcorder for $100 bucks and you buy it, you're guilty of purchasing stolen property. Without a doubt. If he just gives it to you, you're still guilty. Now change the camcorder to an mp3 and the shady guy to napster. How is the end user not guilty in this case? Napster may look shady, but even less so than you'd think, because he's not even offering you an mp3, just telling you where to go to get one. So where does the guilt if any lie? On the end user. This should be an open and shut case.
Please people, let's not even get into it here. Well AC, if you want a flame war why not at least post your email addy? But even as a troll you should have better manners than to use 50 line breaks.
But just to put up a thought on the off chance you might read and think about it.... artists have no moral right to be paid for recorded music. It's not based in the right to be free from harm, the right to free speech, the right to worship as you please. It's not based on any other human moral right. It's a consequence of some silly laws from a long time ago, and living in a democracy if we want to change it we will. Just like that. Because we want to. Regardless of what entrenched interests want. When musicians had to perform for a living there were very few superstars, but many more people who did music as a living without any expectation of superstardom. The money and power of the corporation has corrupted musical integrity. C'mon. Do you really think blink 182 or n'synch really like the music they make? Would they be doing it if they were struggling along?
Even on a structural level - if this is about artists 'rights' then the RIAA has no leg to stand on. In the book publishing world an author signs away the copyright for their work FOR A SINGLE PRINTING after which the rights revert to the writer. In the music industry this is not so. The copyright laws were originally targeted at book publishing. Clearly then, other situations where they're applied should follow the publishing model. Obviously in any moral sense the creation is the property of the creator, not the middlemen who are supposed to distribute the creation. This is all about preserving the need for middlemen. There is no longer any physical need for them. The whole industry seems to think that it has the right to continue to exist. There is no such right. If technology comes along to allow artists to directly get their music to audiences, then it is time for the record industry to die. They have sway with radio stations. Big whoop. They can get posters put up in record stores. Big whoop. They have no chance of even doing a decent job of using the internet for promotion of artists. That is their job isn't it? Promotion of artists and distribution of material? So where are they when they have no web presence to do promotions with and the record stores stop ordering preburned cds and start just burning them to order with a high quality burner off of a 1000 gig hd? Stuck using the law to force us to support a beast that legitimate market pressures and technological changes have rendered unprofitable.
They send cds to radio stations to be played for free. Thousands, all over, at some considerable expense. Sitting at home it's perfectly legal for you to tape record that song. Is it morally different when the transmission medium is fiber optic and phone line rather than radio waves? When you listen to shoutcast you hear what radio will sound like in the future. Made cheaply, customized to the taste of the listener, and for now based on mp3 technology. Why would they object to sending a free mp3 to someone on shoutcast or napster? A delivery method where the listeners do all the work and where the promotional cost is $0? Forget the court battles. Forget the spinmeisters trying to get you to start calling copyright infringement (a minor misdemeanor) piracy or theft (major felonies). The RIAA and their whole sytem are already dead. Just look out for the death rattles.
yes, if an mp3 is on mp3.com it was put there by the artist. the artist also gets a MUCH more generous cut of the sales. which is better, a big cut of small sales or a small cut of big sales? they're often about the same. and of course new artists find it easy to get on mp3.com and start making money right away whereas getting a record contract takes forever at a minimum and is no guarantee of making money.
mp3.com is what i see record stores being like in the future. cds are burned from music stored on hard drives when needed. just this cuts out a lot of the waste that helps jack up cd prices (no distribution costs, no returned cds, no bulky warehouses, no giant factories, etc.)
musicians are performers. they should be paid when they perform. if they're not paid they can refuse to perform. if i tape record their performance - why should they be paid for that? they can't make the music stop coming out of the tape. musicians control their performance. they do not control copies of their music. why are they looking to something they CANNOT control to earn their livelihood? they should look to the one thing they can control.
for about 10,000 years musicians were not paid for recorded music. were there still musicians? yes. did they plan on getting rich? not many of them. did they make a living doing performances? yes. did adding the 'right' to make 10% off of album sales that must be sold to a company help music? no.
again you use the word steal. why? it is called copyright infringement. LOOK IN THE FUCKING LAW BOOKS AC. it is not called theft. you can only steal something that is physical. i can steal a cd. i cannot steal a 'song'. i cannot steal an idea. i cannot steal information by copying it.
1) there is no guarantee of making money.
2) i am an artist.
3) i don't do it for money.
4) i release music under the Free Art License, a twist on the gpl.
5) the RIAA is the one stealing, read one of their fucking contracts, it's out and out rape.
6) the focus on getting a record deal makes many unsigned bands ignore the opportunites they have to make smaller amounts of money on the club circuit or putting out their own material.
7) the artists that realize they can do it on their own demonstrate more integrity than studio owned performers.
8) i want to tear down the whole fucking system and burn it to the ground anyway. copyright does not promote creativity and innovation in music - the system encourages playing it safe and recycling tired formulas - not the goal. the system has failed, time to junk it.
http://www.submerge.com
u r.html
http://www.undergroundresistance.com
From Hyperreal:
http://hyperreal.org/music/lists/313/labels/ur/
Underground Resistance is a label for a movement. A movement that wants change by Sonic Revolution. We urge you to join the Resistance and help us to combat the mediocre audio and visual programming that is being feed to the inhabitants of earth, this programming is stagnating the minds of the people; building a wall between races and preventing world peace. It is this wall we are going to smash. By using the untapped energy potential of sound we are going to destroy this wall much the same as certain frequencies shatter glass. Techno is a music based in experimentation; it is sacred to no one race; it has no definitive sound. It is music for the future of the Human Race. Without this music there will be no peace, no love, no vision. By simply communicating through sound, Techno has brought people of all different nationalities together under one roof to enjoy themselves. Isn't it obvious that music and dance are the keys to the universe? So called primitive animals and tribal humans have known this for thousands of years! We urge all brothers and sisters of the underground to create and transmit their tones and frequencies no matter how so called primitive their equipment may be. Transmit these tones and wreck havoc on the programmers! Long live the Underground...
actually warp is an english label
touch & go, excellent label/distributor out of chicago.
thrill jockey
kranky
darla
a billion import labels, especially too pure, duophonic ultra high fidelity (basically stereolab), warp.
most larger import labels have distro. deals with US labels but you can often find import copies between the dates of the import release (first) and the US release (later).
i think there are thousands. all the recommendations are really going to do is give you and idea about that person's taste in music.
if you want some useful suggestions, ask for indies within a genre.
cause like, if you're a hip-hop head, you can basically ignore all the labels i just mentioned.
if alt rock's your thing, all those will rock you. check out brainwashed.com for some suggestions.
Someone mentioned Mordam as a good indie-rock distributer. Southern Records is another. Better yet, get away from your computer and go to a live show!
TGL
--- this space intentionally left blank.
Someone else has already paid the devil for you.
this is the same argument that some people could make for buying used fur. Sure, it's not quite as bad, because the animal was killed for someone else. But that's not the point.
The point of not buying fur is to kill the market for it. If a record store sees that all their used New Kids on The Block cds move out the door, then it might be convinced that there is a resurgence in their popularity, and they would be wise to order more.
Besides, couldn't you apply the same dumb argument to record stores? Sure - go and buy that new Kid Rock from the store, you're not giving money to the RIAA, no - the store already paid them for that cd, that blood money won't go to the RIAA.... nope.
If you really want to do a boycott properly, then you need to make a point of buying some non-RIAA music - even if you weren't intending to.
- passion
People have been wearing and eating animals for a LONG time.
Yeah, no shit. The point is that humans wore animal skins because there were no other alternatives. We wear them now because of tradition, not of necessity. This feeling of needing to enslave and slaughter other species has been rendered obsolete by our superior methods of clothing generation, and food creation.
that's no reason to continue though. In internet time, a Pentium II 333 is old, right? What about windows 3.1? That's absolutely ancient. Why do a lot of mainstream people use Windows instead of Linux? Because that's what they "grew up with", and they don't care that there may be viable alternatives. Why do a lot of people eat meat instead of only non-animal products? Because they don't care that there may be alternatives.
- passion
Yeah, a lot of crap dies before it gets to the west coast. More crap comes from the west coast.
DK's rule, Pistols rule, And I was DEFINATELY a Punk before YOU were A Punk!
Kiss our CollectiveAss,
You Anonymous Coward posting, Snotty-nosed-sounding, Polyoptic Carbuncle.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
If you like classical (particularly pre-baroque) or pre-60's folk, Dorian Recordings has some good stuff. Unfortunately, their web page (http://www.dorian.com/) has very little content.
And, when you go to the DGM site, make sure you check out Fripp's diary postings for the last week or so (links are embedded in Javascript junk, and I don't have time to go source-fishing just now)--interesting commentary on Napster and related nonsense from a guy who, unlike Courtney Love, is scary-smart (if a tad "mystical" sometimes), and doesn't plagiarize Steve Albini.
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
Lethargic Records is a small, independent record label geared toward electronic music. This company takes the non-profit, non-RIAA approach to the extreme: net profit so far is somewhere around -$12,000. The company was started in order to give budding musicians and DJs a chance to record and produce their work at virtually no cost. The point is to get music out to the public, not to fatten the suits' wallets.
Incidentally, if anyone would like to trade banner space for CDs/vinyl, feel free to email me.
or punk planet
or tokion
or any old zine
and you'll find all kinds of music worth paying for.
i almost certainly will noit be boycotting Phish, the Grateful Dead, Medeski Martin and Wood, or any other of the RIAA-distributed musics that encourage and promote audience taping for non-commercial use. These bands were way ahead of the RIAA to begin with, and the taping certainly hasn't hurt their wallets... or the record labels' for that matter.
\\ Where's my giant foam cowboy hat and airhorn?
Gee, Thanks King Knowledge! I'll go away ashamed of having wasted my life as punk. Fuck you, why don't you go negate the existence of someone who might actually buy your line of shit. That you would even consider the sex pistols as being anything other than a prentenious joke to sell the clothes of Maclaren shows how little of punk you know.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
Poki Records
Roy Sakuma Productions
Four Strings Productions
Mountain Apple Company
Bluewater Records
So if you're into Hawaiian music, you might want to check out Tropical Disc. Most of the discs you can buy there are going to be from non-RIAA member labels. Beware of the Dancing Cat slack key records, though, since DC is an RIAA member.
And if you're not into Hawaiian music, now's the time.
"Unauthorized duplication, although sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing." Sure it's an interesting position to take but it's an inaccurate statement. What happens when the duplication is just "as good as the real thing"? I'd say we're already pretty close and at least good enough.
"It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." (W. Edwards Deming)
Don't forget Green Linnet records. They aren't on the RIAA list, as either Green Linnet, or their other title, Xenophile, they also have distributed some of McKennitts songs, as well as a number of other good artists (actually, whenever after celtic, I know the music is good if distributed by Green Linnet).
You may also note that they have 15 tracks from assorted cds downloadable as mp3s.
http://www.greenlinnet.com/audio/mp3.htm
They have series of themed cd's at $8, though you'll pay more for a cd of one specific artist...
Oh, BTW, I have some Loreena McKennitt cds here, and some of them mention Warner Brothers and BMG, as well as Quinlan Road, on the back. Wouldn't they be RIAA members?
--Arcum
So you can do process of elimination.
The List. Please note that in the Napster case the RIAA is not representing all of its members (Sony is a notable exception).
For high quality indie labels, I recommend Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, Rounder, and Hightone.
Morals, morals, morals. When will people learn?
A used CD has already been bought and paid for, isn't it then reasonable to retain the right to sell it off, or give (heaven forbid!) to someone else when you're tired of listening to the music? WHAT did you buy exactly then?
Morals got NOTHING to do with this. Morals is BS people try to shove down your throat in order to control you. There's nothing forcing us to live life like we do other than our own ignorance and urge of compliance.
Logic is superior to morals, but unfortunately insufficient. Only our free will can tell us how to live.
If you feel like supporting artists more directly, fine, don't buy used CDs. But please spare us for your morals.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
The sales figures are utterly meaningsless, since they are always interpreted in a subject opinion.
Annual Sales figures goes up:
1) Napster succeeded in getting people to buy RIAA records to "show" RIAA that people will still buy CDs. Huzzah for Napster!! (The future is still uncertain though)
2) RIAA succeeded in shutting down Napster, thus making it harder for people to find music "immorally". They begin buying CDs again. Huzzah for RIAA!! (People can still find new ways though)
Annual Sales figures goes down:
1) Anti-RIAA people succeeded in their boycott, RIAA-members are peeing in their pants now knowing their superiors. DIE RIAA, DIIIEEE!! (Will people begin to buy from RIAA again?)
2) As RIAA anticipated, the "immoral" transfers of MP3's are now taking effect. Huzzah for RIAA!! (More control over music and video will have to be initiated)
Not to mention that all of these arguments are meaningless in and by themselves. They can be interpreted in a subjective fashion all according to what people want of the world! An RIAA-member will think of him/herself and the company, as will any person out there.
So this whole boycott/buycott farse is meaningless, and so is discussing anything on this issue beside the fact that artists and CD-buyers are _currently_ being ripped off!
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Lookout records (Citizen Fish, Operation Ivy and other punk bands) wasn't on the list when I checked it.
For crying out loud, if the RIAA isn't about greed and money, then why do we pay a frickin' royalty on all recordable media? Artists complaining about piracy is valid. A large corporation complaining because they no longer monopolize the flow of information (music distribution) is GREED.
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
This'll work best in cities.
Go to live shows at small venues, bars, coffee houses, small to medium theaters. Buy your CD('s) there, or don't buy at all. Yeah, I'll go to shows on their reputation, and find it was hype. Even when the headline band really and truly sucks, the opening bands may make the expedition worthwhile, surprisingly enough.
You get to support live music (and most musicians like that, apparently touring is fun on a small enough scale).
Smaller venues tend to attract unsigned musicians and you know the musicians are getting their cut when they're selling their own CD's.
A hazard might be getting into the occasional party with musicians (a risk I'll take).
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
Anyhow the following labels are really cool and truly indie:
Although McDonalds probably does go with Coke because a good number of their competitors have some kind of business relationship with Pepsi. They don't want to be dependant on a company that has close ties with the place down the block.
-RickHunter
but you don't turn millions from coding, from networking, from developing IRC, from developing Linux. Sure a few EXPLOITERS are making millions, like the CEOs of really big distribution companies (oooops, don't wanna step on any toes over here), or CEOs or CTOs (wtf?!?). Whoever became a milionaire from programming a script that saved millions of bytes on large servers? Yet you write something stupid like the thong song :) and you make millions.. why? Cuz you're rude... that's why. I'd rather pay money for GNU powered by Linux/Herd than for Sisqo powered by greed. (and I'm not picking on Sisqo, Kid Rock is just as bad, just as there are many others who are good (like Linux))
Yeah i agree. Go here: www.freespeechfunhouse.com NOW!
----------------------------------
grandroyal is not on that list! go buy every beastie boys record ever.
SST is not on there either, buy some husker du, bad brains, and black flag.
oh well, i'll just buy vinyl. works just the same, and the riaa doesn't benefit.
'Mullethead. A hairstyle that's a way of life'
Pepsi owns KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. They also have regional agreements with some Wendy's. Coke has an exclusive deal with McDonalds, Burger King, and regional agreements with non-Pepsi Wendy's regions.
My band Entrophy (http://www.Entrophy.org/ -- shameless promotion) releases all of our stuff on our own label, aptly titled Fuck Labels! Few will find the humor in it but oh well...
-- www.RoachMcKrackin.com
If you're into noise/experimental/collage, check out seeland
Even worse is the fact that, in the above example, both Coke and Pepsi are at some point related to each other, and that Taco Bell and KFC are now parts of the same company. In the record industry, just as in fast food, we have to be aware that this is not simply a pyramidal structure but that there are many, many cross-connections.
That's a little too broad of a statement. I think that the electronic music scene has more depth than you think. Indie labels are a majority of the electronic music scene. Most GOOD electronic cds are impossible to find in a commercial record shop. MP3's play a big part of speading new electronic artists' music. Granted napster doesn't provide much help here either, but shoutcasts are. My guess is that you're deathly afraid of the growing electronic scene, and the dwindling number of popular rock bands is becoming more obvious. Face it, rock died with the 20th century.
I recommend bigheavyworld. A nice local label (Burlington, VT) with quite a diverse catalog. Chainsaws and Children - tech-core, Chin Ho! - alt-pop,Zola Turn - rock, plus more.
Stupid Cheap Guitars
Personally, I think Napster is more on the illegal side than the legal side, though I think the court battle is a worthy one.
But my distaste for the RIAA stems from more than the Napster trial. What about what they did to MP3.com who had a much more sound business model? What about the price gouging? What about the trust-like bheaviors? What about the unfair treatment and slavery of the artists themselves? What about the RIAA's reluctance to move along with the times and embrace technology?
I think the anti-RIAA movement would do a lot better if the press (including Slashdot stories) focused on the big picture instead of only the popular picture. The Napster treatment is just another facet to the multi-faceted RIAA.
Or were you referring to the Faith/Shania/Garth lite-pop country that's festering on the airwaves these days? Then by all means, bash away.
is buying groceries without supporting a tobacco company. Trickier than you might think, what with Kraft, Nabisco, and any number of smaller companies like Starbucks etc. owned by tobacco...
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
My unversity signed a 10-year, $5 million contract with coke, they have a monopoly on all sodas sold on campus. Most of the money is going to athletic scholarship. Yet another reason our administration sucks.
Isn't Napster itself just one big boycott of the RIAA? It seems far too hypocritical to say "I steal music. If the RIAA tries to stop me I won't buy music."
Send royalty checks to the artists Seems to me the most intelligent thing ever said concerning mp3s
Wonderdog Records is one of the many small indie labels that isn't an RIAA member and that encourages downloading, Napsterizing, etc.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
When people say "vote with your dollar", I normally write them off as clueless - this is for many reasons but the one mentioned before is one of the bigger ones.
/.'s I imagine, I have the knowledge and resources to put up the web site, but not the knowledge or resources to obtain the ownership graph (or keep it current).
It's a universal problem, extending far beyond the RIAA, MPAA & McDonalds. I have often wished there was a website somewhere that I could just type in the name of a company or corportation and it would report back with all the major shareholders are and who their major shareholders are etc (or who owns it if it's private).
Anyone know of such a site?
Like many
<daydreaming>
Customisable thresholds and names to specifically scan the entire ownership chain for ("Search on Blargle Inc. finds that Disney has an 3% stake and Microsoft has a 1% stake") would be nice.
</daydreaming>
One site we can make though, is one where people can submit (under a company name) a product they boycotted and why. This would facilitate (I can't believe I just used that word) easy access for those high up in corporations to the various reasons plebs like us aren't buying their products (and pretty statistical analysis), as that is another of the big reasons voting with your dollar doesn't work - not buying does not inform the company why you didn't buy, and neither does telling the minimum wage guy behind the counter.
Another label with a similar ethos is KillRockStars. I applaud these labels for their open minded view of the internet and music sharing in general, and I think that we, as the record-buying public should support them in their quest in "exploding the teenage underground into passionate revolt against the corporate ogre since 1982."
As for boycotting the RIAA and still buying music, I'd suggest buying bootlegs. This seems to piss off the RIAA more than mp3s (at least it used to) and you end up getting the same music. Amen!
Projekt, Cleopatra, and K-tel are all independant labels I think. I am positive that Projekt is, and it has some extremely talented artists.
Relapse records is another of my favorite labels. They put out Death/Black/Doom metal as well as experimental/ambient on their subsidiary Release.
hope this helps... of course if you are looking for BSB/Limp Bizkit sort of music, you probably won't be able to find any indy labels who carry their equivalent... Indy labels carry quality music that has not been dumbed down for the masses. ya.. ok, sorry.
----(o)----
Audiogalaxy.com, they're all independent music distributors cetering to unsigned artists and in no way interested in music piracy...
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
you're thinking of capitalism, jackass!
open source is all about advancement! downloading mp3s is just like making a long-distance call over the internet: technology is advancing, and our business practices will have to advance too. it's sad but true that some people will get fucked in the process but at least this time it's high-level executives and not dark-skinned natives.
grizzo: totally insecure, but very convenient.
ask someone who works in the telephone industry if they're similar.
grizzo: totally insecure, but very convenient.
One of the best places to look for independent labels that are truly independent is in regional venue. There's hundreds of small labels out there that devoted to particular area. They can be hard to find, and sometimes you just trip over them. The one that comes to my mind is School Kids Records--sadly defunct I think. They are or used to be a label that recorded mostly artists in the SE Michigan area. Good luck in finding any of their stuff nationwide. But, if you lived in Ann Arbor, chances are you could find their records in local stores--even the chains. Another example of a regional indy label is Rounder. They may actually be a national label, but I've only heard Californian artists on their albums.
The other place to look for indy labels is in specfic genres. Major lables put out pop, more pop, and pop dressed up as "alternative". They might put out some other stuff just hedge their bets, but musical genres tend to be served by small labels. I'm thinking of Alligator Records which caters to the blues scene. There's also quite a few indy labels in the electronic scene. And, the novelty music genre is largely untouched by major labels. I'm thinking of people like the Residents in this case who used be on Ralph Records. Infact, a lot these labels are run by the artists themselves and represent a brandname more than anything else.
Not only is Projekt not an RIAA member, Sam Rosenthol the owner, supports napster :).
He also mentioned in his weekly newsletter that for small label's like his mp3's are great exposer. When projekt started he encourged people to make copies of his tapes just so more people would know who Projekt is, imagine how much faster a label can grow now with mp3's.
The RIAA not only needs to be boycotted for it's stand on napster, but it's horrible cost on cd's. Why is it RIAA labels who have plenty of money charge from 15-19 dollars a cd and indy labels that don't have excessive amounts of cash can profit from selling cd's for 10-16 dollars?
i found one label with some good bands on it that i listen to. they are called projekt. they are mostly gothic/darkwave stuff but really good i recommend lycia and a blacktape for a blue girl
here is their web site for those interested
http://www.projekt.com
too bad neither rammstein or NIN are goth
NIN is industrial plain and simple
rammstein is a metal/industrial band
if you want real goth bands try stuff like death cult, southern death cult, bahaus, switchblade symphony, rosetta stone and many more. if you want to find real goth pick up a box set by cleopatra call "the goth box" it has all REAL goth bands. you will notice that NIN, rammstein or marilyn manson are NOT on that box set because they are not goth.
Salon had a good article on what a failure the buycott was. interesting stuff
The concept of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
OF COURSE THERE ARE NON-RIAA labels, yes and they are not owned by any of the big 5(the big 5 are the top level companies) the there is Epitaph, the offspring's former label(they released smash under it, making it the biggest indie album ever) there is Fat Wreck Chords by fat mike of NOFX, and many others, none of their bands never get radio air play because the big5 own 90% of the contry's radio stations. NOFX's "Punk in Drublic" album has gone gold with no Ad's radio airplay etc...
There are many non-RIAA labels available at the Artist Shop, a pretty classy little online store dedicated to independent, usually artist-run, labels.
Check it out. Then buy "What means solid, traveller?" and "BLUE Nights."
Anyhow, check out their web site.
There are many sources out there to get good independent music. I would recommend going to: Artist Shop in order to get a better idea of what is out there. There is a company called Discipline Global Mobile that produces outstanding music and operates under a philosophy of *true* respect and cooperation with artists. They don't have contracts with their artists and they don't own the copyrights to their work so that the artist maintains their right to their work instead of some label owning it. While they make mainly terrible punk music, Epitaph records is an independent label that has some good artists on it...Tom Waits and Wayne Kramer (of the mc5) namely. For better punk music check out: Dischord Records. The owner of this label is in the band Fugazi and they're a truely amazing band that I would recommend to one and all.
:-) In all seriousness though, people should have been looking into this stuff *WAY* before the RIAA decided to go after Napster and for some reason started a boycott (one company sues another one and we side with the one because we honestly believe that they're 100% right in what they are doing or because they are giving us something we want...hm I wonder)...independent music was always there for you to hear if you were interested...or if you cared...
It's nice to see that independent artists are getting some attention from a more mainstream audience in the wake of the general disgust the world seems to feel towards the RIAA. Independent labels have helped nuture less commerical bands that have often changed the way that music is defined. Bands like the velvet underground, king crimson, and joy division were all able to make an amazing contribution to music without the aid of a large record label.
In case you haven't already been;mp3.com is a good source of outstanding independent music. Anyway, I hope this helps someone find independent music that they enjoy...music is my passion in life and I love to help people find stuff that they might like
Best wishes,
Jon Swinghammer
I don't think you realize this but Fat Wreck Chords does the exact same things to artists that any large label does. They believe they have a right to own an artist's copyright and force artists to sign over their copyrights to be on their label just like any of the RIAA companies do. Perhaps you should research the subject more and you will find just how bad almost every label out there is screwing the artists who are on them. The RIAA aren't the only bad guys out there, you know?
Best wishes,
Jon Swinghammer
I tend to collect unusual music, from other countries. If you want to stay away from RIAA companies, the easiest way is to purchase import albums. (Not all of them qualify, of course. Arista and Virgin might be from Great Britain, but they're both members.)
One album company that I want to feature: Discipline Global Mobile is the recording company for King Crimson . On the back of their album "The Deception of the Thrush" is the comment:
Their business aims on their website goes into more detail of how they apply their philosophy.
(Note: I am not affiliated with Discipline Global Mobile in any way, except that I love King Crimson's music.)
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
Not anymore, buddy. Pepsi sold off most of its subsidiaries, including all of its fast-food holdings. The only thing I know of that Pepsi still holds, outside of grocery-type-products, is Regal Cinemas, inc.
You are right about the fast food joints. I won't argue there. The last time I knew, PepsiCo owned them, but it appears they have since sold them off. I also won't disagree with your comment on how restaurants choose their soda line. They do whatever is cheaper (usually).
However, I would challenge you about the rest of their "grocery-type-products." Check the PepsiCo web site, it appears that they still own the Frito-Lay product line as well as the Tropicana product line. (Just look at the four logos in the upper-right hand corner of the page.)
This is supposed to be great art. So why does it look like a bunch of decapitated naked people? -- Calvin
This is starting to get off topic, but...
I'm not sure about McDonalds, but I know that KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut are owned by PepsiCo , which also owns the Pepsi product line, the Frito-Lay product line, and the Tropicana product line.
So in order to effectively boycott KFC, Taco Bell or Pizza Hut, you can't buy and Frito-lay products, Pepsi products or Tropicana products.
And then there's Philip Morris owning Kraft...
Oh well
This is supposed to be great art. So why does it look like a bunch of decapitated naked people? -- Calvin
alternative tentacles
wrong records
jello biafra and nomeansno say fuck riaa!
Pretty cool, huh? Even if make and record your own music on tapes (or make speech tapes or old Atari 800 tape programs or home monitoring tapes or telephone logs) you are supporting the RIAA.
Okay, are there any non-RIAA labels that play stuff that you can listen to with actual girls other than goth chicks?
Yeah, try teenbeat... the Rondelles, specifically.. a girly poppy rock band, they sound like the go-gos. Or try to pick up BIS, a teeny-bopper poppy newavey band, they are on Grand Royal, though, the Beastie Boys label, so that could be in the RIAA. Either of these would be available at a good record store, but I don't know the URLs offhand.
(As opposed to all the pretentious college radio sh*t and ferral headbanger mush you just suggested to us.)
Actually, most of the things I suggested don't get play on college radio, with the exception of K and Kill Rock Stars... Those two labels, incidentally, have albums by the likes of Beck (a multiplatinum artist) and Sleater-Kinney (whose albums have been awarded 4 and 5 star ratings by, of all magazines, Rolling Stone). Not everything on indie labels is obscure or "unlistenable". Of course, if the most interesting stuff you listen to is Christina and Brittany, then, yes, you should skip everything I mentioned. And possibly kill yourself.
How about something that human beings can dance to?
If you like dance music/techno/electronica, there are literally hundreds of small labels that do that stuff. I don't really like it, so I can't direct you, but I'm sure with a little help from Yahoo, you can find em. Or, if you live in even a moderately sized city, there should be a DJ shop that carries a good selection of dance stuff.
Josh Sisk
Not anymore, buddy. Pepsi sold off most of its subsidiaries, including all of its fast-food holdings. The only thing I know of that Pepsi still holds, outside of grocery-type-products, is Regal Cinemas, inc.
btw, the reason fast food joints only ever have one brand of soft drink is that they don't want to compete inside of a restaurant, so instead they compete for the restaurant, and the restaurtant picks whoever gives them a better deal.
----------
"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
i meant that RC, inc. is the only thing that isn't "grocery-type-products."
----------
"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
Neither are Double Down Records (though you'd be hard pressed to find DDR releases anyway) and Consolidated Fruvous inc., the new internet-distributed-only label for Moxy Fruvous.
Also, Victory Records is not the same as Victory or Victory Music (I think), so they should be ok.
And there's always emusic. I'm pretty sure they aren't a member :)
----------
"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
NOFX is on Epitaph records which is RIAA. Propaghandi is on Fat Wreck Chords which is RIAA. Dead Kennedys is on Alternative Tentacles, sometimes Subterranean, and I believe once or twice on IRS records, none of which are RIAA. Anti-Flag is [i'm pretty sure] on A-F Records, which is not RIAA. Most Punk Rock out there is on a label distributed by Epitaph or another so-called Punk label that is really corporate BS owned or distributed by an RIAA label. Don't buy into what the band says always... Money has made many corporate yuppies into so called Punk Rockers just to make a buck
Nettwerk is DEFINITELY RIAA, I've met a fair bunch of guys who were in Pigface and all that and they said that Nettwerk was a money machine and only stuck to Industrial because there wasn't a lot of competition... TVT/Nothing does own waxtrax! now and they are RIAA for sure. Cleopatra last I checked was not RIAA but they charge an arm and a leg for really badly mastered or mixed music. Careful with some of their selections. Ritalin[RX] Ogre's band is distributed by a non-RIAA label called Spitfire I believe. Also, last I heard Ogre's band Welt will also be distributed by Spitfire. Ogre and cEvin Key are supposedly going to be getting back together for a show or two in Europe, but those shows will be sponsored somehow by Nettwerk, which as I previously noted is an RIAA label. Ogre probably doesn't care either way, I'm pretty sure it was him that serves a decent Skinny Puppy napster server :)
Forget the labels. Send your money to your artist directly. You can get out the checkbook and write them a check and drop it in the mail. Of course finding the right address isn't as easy as many think it is. But we are working on developing a list so that you don't have to get trapped in voice mail hell. It should be up in a few weeks.
Or you can go to www.fairtunes.com and send money directly to any artist with your credit card. We'll sit on the phone and get the addresses and ensure your money gets there. Lots of people have been concerned about us actually sending the money. Check out our FAQ. It should now cover everyone's concerns.
Of course can we the music consumers turn this protest of the moment into a future payment model? That is the big question. Can we be trusted and responsible enough to voluntarily give what is fair?
I really hope we can because the record label is screwing us the listeners and it's screwing the artists.
Matt
co-founder
Fairtunes
Matt.
Owned & Operated is an excellent example of a non-RIAA affiliated label. The label is based in Fort Collins, CO and is run by Bill Stevenson (ALL, The Descendents, Black Flag) and Joe Carducci. They have put out consistently high quality punk-pop music for about two years, the highlights being New Rob Robbies "Pure Whore" and The Pavers "Local 1500".
Industrial recorcd labels tend to suck in general, TVT/WAX TRAX! just gets the big attention because they had big names. Ministry, NIN, KMFDM, Sister Machine Gun, Coil, Gravity Kills, etc. SMG has moved on to their own label and Chris Randall (imho misguidedly) supports Napster. Positron Records is his new label, even got a few good bands on it. Ask Acumen Nation sometime about how it feels being on more than one label and getting fucked by both of them as happened when they did Iron Lung Corp as a side project with Clay People.
http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/problemwithmusic. html
(anymore) but most of the artists I hear on "alternative" radio are signed to major labels and I can't tell which ones aren't?
/quite/ a while and when we was it was almost always late at night. (I don't hear him on radio either ftm) He recently spoke out in favor of Napster, and even, specifically /his/ music being on it on the theory that it sells more CDs. But is volcano records in RIAA? It never says on the CD case but I thought I heard somewhere it was part of universal or warner or something, and they have the usual cut&paste "don't bloody copy this CD" legalese printed on it. So that doesn't help at all, back to square one.
What about wierd al? I like him, he hasn't been on MTV in
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
If you like the sound of say, a rabid cat howling on a fence late at night, you'll love her stuff.
Are you kidding? I made a bootleg recording of the neighborhood rabid cat posse howling in the alley outside my window and play it every night to go to sleep! (yes, it's now considered bootleg. The lead howler somehow got signed to a big 5 label, hired a lawyer, claimed that it was a live performance and took me to court in order to confiscate my recording)
(then I met with the cat and his lawyer and pointed out that cats couldn't enter into legally binding contracts or own property, intellectual or otherwise, so the label could claim ownership of the cats' material if they figured this out; I proceeded to hold this over his head until he handed (pawed?) my tape back)
End of story
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Simmah down now!! Jesus fucking christ!!
No, it's not stealing. If I take a recording from an artist, that's stealing. If I re-record an artist's work off of a recording I bought from them, that's no more stealing than repeating the spoken word of a famous person to a friend. They're an artist, right? They worked out those words, and they gotta make a living! What fucking right do I have to steal!! For that matter, what fucking right do I have to even hear the words spoken? That's right, It's my goddamn responsibility to make sure I've paid before I hear a "name" celebrity speak because "artists have a right to control the use of their work".
I'm sorry, but once it's out there, it's out there. If you let loose with something you can't control it, except with shrink-wrap contracts. Don't like it? Don't publish your work. Most recognized "great" artists from another genre, the one most associated w/ the term "artist", don't. You ever think maybe if musicians didn't ever duplicate recordings the really good ones could sell their unduplicated masters for a mint? Then they don't have to worry who makes what, it isn't their problem. Or get them under contract, easier to control just one person. Like you see prints made and sold of paintings but if it's somebody real famous they're pretty much all posthumous. Same thing.
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Superpickle is a non-RIAA label, with some pretty good artists. Check 'em out at http://www.superpickle.com/
----- Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.
The short answer:
;)
Gnutella
Who still buys music? I heard you get MP3s off the Internet for free. I think it may just be a rumor though, it sounds too good to be true. Just think, you could get free music AND stick it to the RIAA at the same time. If only it were true...
Kill Rock Stars is the absolute epitome of indie labels, and they have the absolute epitome of indie punk bands, Sleater-Kinney.
What are you going to do if the non-RIAA companies also decides to sue Napster? Hmm? Ban music all together?
And here is the link to them. This guy is right, Fat probably is one of the best indie labels out there... Although I think they are distributed by Sony (through Epitaph) but I could be wrong...
sig this
Well damn. That kinda make Fat Mike a hypocrite doesn't it. What with the "Dinosaurs Will Die" stuff and all.
sig this
Not my favorite, mind you, I think her music sounds like the aural equivelent of root canal surgery, but to each his own.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Well, there's SonMay in Taiwan, though much of their older stuff is pirated. They do anime and game soundtracks mostly.
Avex Trax (this link's in English, too!) Is a very large music company in Japan, handling some Japanese stars like Namie Amuro, Hitomi, Every Little Thing, and more recently Ayumi Hamasaki (yay!) They also apparently handle Japanese versions of popular English artists' albums, but I haven't read their website so I'm not sure.
There's just two alternatives. You might also want to look at companies in the UK, but I don't know which ones might have RIAA ties.
Here are two record labels who are NOT in the RIAA. Most of their stuff is classical and jazz: www.chandos.net -- British company, lots of selection www.referencerecordings.com -- US company, small selection, but their CDs are by FAR the highest quality I have ever heard!
moo
I'm confused.. I didn't think that MP3.com was stealing the music of others. I was under the impression that if an artists music was on MP3.com, they were the ones that put it there. Can anyone confirm/refute this?
Personal opinion, mind you, personal opinion. Everyone is allowed their taste in music, be it techno or country, folk or pop, indie or corp.
sub-pop was purchased by geffen records at the peak of the grunge era. kinda drove kurt right to the edge, i imagine, working for a major.
SST and alternative tentacles are still safe bets, and have great music if you like old school punk rock (black flag, dead kennedys, jello biafra spoken word, minutmen, descendents, mojo nixon, to think of a few)
is anyone else noticing how hard it is to find music that's NOT on an RIAA label? this is getting pretty silly.
london is drowning and i live by river
IHMO this sort of practice should be illegal. free markets need to be protected from monopoly practices and this is a monopoly practice.
It's good for McDonalds because they get the syrup cheaper and it's good for Coke
... [and you left out] it's bad for the consumer not to have the choice, especially when such choice is likely to put competitive pressure toward lowering prices. I'd qualify my position on economics as radical free market. Quick example: movie theaters should be required to offer competition in the lobby for food vendors and if some movies (bad ones) are not offered at a lower price than the most popular, that should be prima facie evidence of illegal price collusion.
The scenario you offer whereby the deal is struck between the soft drink makers and the fast food joints is certainly plausible, but many price collusive monopoly or cartel pricing schemes are equally plausible. My point is that they should be illegal. "Sell ours exclusively" should not come with a lower price: it hurts the economy.
Try Suburban Noize. All their bands are pretty bad ass, except some are beginning to be distributed through Capitol. The older stuff isn't though.
Anyone know if Rykodisc is RIAA-affiliated? If not, they're an excellent source of good music. Even if so, they're still a source of good music, albeit evil music that must not be purchased under any circumstances.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
I suggest people to buy music from mp3.com (and others site like this one). The artists get an interesting part of the revenues made by mp3.com (1 million bucks per month gived to artists). If you buy cd from here (not expensives), half goes to the artist, wich is much more than actually with majors records labels.
Home of cool bands like The Promise Ring, doesn't have any RIAA connections that I know of.
The problem is that in this case the musician gets absolutely nothing either. As far as I'm concerned, buying used CDs is not much morally different from copying.
TVT is also notorious for fucking over Coil, the post-Psychic TV project of John Balance and Peter Christopherson. Coil never got royalties from their seminal album "Love's Secret Domain," and since TVT owns the distribution rights, this fantastic recording is totally out of print and changing hands at $40 a pop on eBay.
TVT also somehow managed to distribute Autechre for Warp Records (a UK label). Now, thank god, Autechre is distributed by Nothing...
--alex k.
To me the boycott also means not going to concerts or buying the merchandise of bands who are on labels with RIAA membership. It also means not watching the music videos or listening to songs on the radio!! I can't even stand to think about how "advertising, demographics, independant promotions, etc. etc." dominates the media so much now, it sickens me! Does everyeone feel this same way? Am I going to far? If you want to effectively remove yourself from the gearmesh of corporate greed, it only makes sense to take all these actions.
don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things
...when they make money no matter what off of the CD-Rs, Cassette tapes, and other related items that independant labels need? They get a fee for every recordable audio medium sold in many countries to compensate artists for copied works.
So in a sense, the RIAA can not be boycotted fully, since you always have to pay them money somewhere along the chain whenever you get recordable or pre-recorded media.
There was talk a long time ago about challenging this in the United States as an illegal form of tax. I do not know happened to that, however.
- elimating the Vitamin 98 Spice Britney Sync Aguilera culture
- the bands themselves would be sentenced to skid row, and
- it would promote sustainable development through negative population growth, helping our planet live for another few decades.
It really sounds like a good idea, frankly. I hope Carnivore ain't runnin' on Slashdot yet!!I'd expect some larger non-RIAA labels to come around soon. The RIAA is probably trying to squeeze Napster so it can monopolize the act of distribution itself, to a certain extent (ignoring the greater GNUtella/Freenet issue), and discourage it. But an online label--while marketing might suffer to a certain degree--could digitally distribute its artists' music at negligible cost, and give the artists a greater percentage of the proceeds. This would certainly appeal to Courtney Love, apparently. Obviously the piracy problem is still there, but the windows for this sort of thing are opening much wider in my opinion. The RIAA and its members will die.
Lousy A&M, good thing I already downloaded all the Herb Alpert songs I can stand!
Every boycott effects the seller. The question is whether it would effect them enough for them to take action or change their policy; the answer, presumably, is maybe. :)
in fact, in the northwestern area there are quite a few of those combination restaurants.
Scatter the light to brighten a room, focus it to kill something.
northwest US that is Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado a lot in the Midwest too
Scatter the light to brighten a room, focus it to kill something.
Another big group of artists you can count on not being in the RIAA is anyone from Europe, and there are some good bands over there. Any geek will tell you that.
personally, i listen to a lot of techno, so i don't have a problem. i have to buy cds online to find anyone i like. try rammstein (they rule) or my favorite trance dj, ATB
In short, there IS an alternative to crappy, overplayed american music.
-Superb0wl
-Superb0wl
It's not that I'm lazy....it's that I just don't care.
The only problem with not boycotting real-life music stores is that they then take your money, and pay the RIAA members for more CDs. So in essence, you ARE paying the RIAA for their CDs.
67.5% Slashdot Pure I guess I need to work on that....
There are sooooo many independent record labels out there that to generate a list would be a diviant task. The punk scene is a haven for independent labels and anti-big business organizations it hurts to think about it. But the problem is not everyone has the taste for punk rock, which is why all of these indie-record labels are labeled so. The major labels know what the majority like, and thats why they are the "major labels". They produce music that the people like and buy. Punk rock record labels produce music that only punks buy. If you're into Metallica, and Dr. Dre and you are anti-major record label, then napster better be your best friend, cuz thats the only way you're gonna hear them. As for punk, CD's are about 10 bux a pop, and most bands would'nt care if people pirated their music, most would probably encourage it so they could get a following. I'd say if you wanted to get the major label music for and still boycott them, burn CD's make tapes.....or listen to punk. Cheers
I am currently not obliged to divulge that information as it might compromise the agents in the field
Speaking of specific labels, if anyone's concerned:
There are so many great bands out there that are no where near the RIAA in any genre you can think of but glossy crappy pop, and I for one don't and won't miss that.
sell your certainty and buy bewilderment
http://www.vorbisonic.com/home.htm
Vorbisonic is currently the only record label
supporting Ogg Vorbis instead of patented mp3.
I imagine there will be more to follow.
What about Pink Floyd Music Publishers, Ltd.?
Does that count? I didn't see that one in the members list.
And why would they be, being a group that showed their cynicism for the recording industry more than 20 years ago with "Have a Cigar".
Fon2d2
I'm not a big fan of Anonymous Cowards, but why was this modded down?
I think it's completely logical. You can only buy Matchbox 20 CD's from one label. If you want to buy a CD, check out the label and see if it's RIAA. If it's not, you're in the clear. But I doubt you'll have much luck finding music you like based on the label rather than the artist.
You want us to believe that the best way to hurt the RIAA is to give them even more money... Sure, whatever.
No, I don't expect you're going to really do anything that will hurt the RIAA. You can convince them they're right, that Napster is a major threat to them, or convince them that it's a minor boon. But your petty boycott isn't going to scare them.
The effectiveness of any boycott depends on the change it incurs. So the only significant boycotters are the ones who would previously bought a lot of CDs from RIAA. While I believe there are several Napster users who still buy RIAA CDs (me being one of them), I think these people account for a very small percentage of the total CD buyers, and I don't think you'll really convince even 50% of the Napster/CD-purchasers to boycott.
Think of the tobacco companies. Everyone and their dog knows that cigarettes are bad for them, and there's tons of "concerned citizens" out there trying to quit. And yet the tobacco companies are still alive and kicking, turning out massive profits. I hate to rain on your grassroots parade, but a small collection of concerned citizens isn't going to change the policies of a billion dollar industrial complex. Especially not by threatening minor financial hits, when the reason RIAA is acting this way is because they're pursuing major financial issues (like judgements won in a lawsuit, or concerns like "will anyone ever buy any of our CDs if they can get them for free?").
If you want to buycott something, rush out and buy from the indies. That way they'll still lose, but market research will show that CD sales in general are up.
That sounds familiar. Maybe because that's what I said:
"The Buy-cott however, is a great idea. This way market research shows that the record labels who are encouraging Napster are showing record (no pun intended) sales, and maybe give RIAA something to think about."
The point here is that RIAA is huge, and not only is it huge, but it's made up of lots of member companies. So even assuming you inflict a 10% cut in their profits, (a ridiculously optimistic figure) you have to convince not just one man, but at least 20 different companies that the profit cuts are entirely due to outrage at their legal action against Napster. Even then, as I've mentioned before, it has gone beyond RIAA now. It's in the courts. It's up to a judge now to declare Napster as legal or illegal, and the judge isn't going to be scared of financial losses. Instead, the judge is going to be looking for financial losses, because they would support RIAA's claim that Napster is causing them damages.
You can make impact here, I'm not trying to say you can't. But the way you can make impact is by supporting the "good guys" (the indie labels), not by trying to hurt the RIAA.
never would have guessed that password....
Anyway, to avoid being too far off subject, I find that purchasing CD's from local bands is the best way to go. Even in small towns, there are many good bands to choose from. One of my favorite local bands is Savage Pastry. They put out their own CD's (on CD-R's of course) for $7 a piece. None goes to the RIAA, or even any record label for that matter. It all goes to the band, like it rightfully should. Just look around, you may find a band that suits your tastes, and if you can buy the music from them, no money will go to greedy record companies.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Not a bad recomendation I believe... The RIAA already got there share so it's not going to help them at all. It's only going to help the stores and people in your area or what not...
Who's the black private dick, who's a sex machine for all the chicks?
Write to your representative.
Use Gnutella and Freenet and Irc (But studies show that you might wind up buying more cds)
Buy form Indie Labels
Listen to the music you already downloaded for a while! If you were smart and not bandwith challenged then should have a nice little collection of your favorite music.
As I end I'd just like to point out that most music on Napster sucked, aolt. Same goes for record stores.Are ones where you know the people running it...:)
How Jaded Are You?
I plan on participating in the boycott but had assumed this would mean buying NO music since pretty much all labels seem to be tied to the RIAA in some way. I'd be real interested in finding some that aren't.
Wow, lots of good suggestions in this thread. Thanks to all who posted information on alternative labels to RIAA affiliates. At least now I feel that I can participate in the boycott and not feel like I'm putting myself totally in the cold (musically speaking of course).
Netwerk has been owned by capitol since about 1986. But there are thousands of small independent labels to choose from. Quarterstick, Projekt, BarNone, and Independent Project Records are a few more of them
I run a small label, and at the moment I'm using napster as a promotional tool. I would like to see it turn into a fee based system at some point. But many people still want to own the disc, so I see it as a way to increase sales. You may find that most small labels have like viewpoint. For years we have made sampler discs and tapes, to be able to do the same thing at almost no cost is great for us. The love of music is what gets most of us started in the industry,and the RIAA viewpoint is very alien to us most of time. We know that most music is purchased by word of mouth, ie: trading, taping, and now mp3's. As a side note I have been calling all the bands I know in the Phoenix area to create a underground music archive of the last 20 years on napster. And so far every band has been very happy to release material. I feel it is bigger crime to lose all that body of work through time, then the loss of few dollars to by the major labels. (if they really are lossing anything there is evidence that they are gaining sales) my napster user name is PrimaryRecords
Given the fact that I have tired of flaming/trolling the almighty stupid Vladinator, I have decided to make this troll account an open source project.
Account name:V1abinator
Password:bitchass
Have fun trolls!
Fawking Trolls!
well spank me on the ass and call me suzy. you're right! hrm. i was completely unaware that they were RIAA affiliated. That sux ass. [mrzer0]
yeah, i realized epitaph was RIAA affiliated. and b/c of that, I kind of figured NoFX was too, but I went out on a limb and said FWC anyway. :( Sorry for the mess up. I guess I suck ass now. Maybe if I followed the scene anymore, I would have fucken known. Damn school/gf/financial problems, holding me back. *sigh*
[mrzer0]
A lot of Punk/Ska bands are NOT affiliated with the RIAA, bands such as NoFX, Propagandhi, Anti-Flag, obviously Dead Kennedys. If you plan on buycotting, you should just save some money for a month, and not buy ANY CDs. That's what most people were going to do, I thought. Maybe I'm wrong.
0wnerZ?
[mrzer0]
Look...RIAA and NAPSTER both fucked up. Napster lied when they said that the RIAA asked to have them shut down. NAPSTER was asked to remove all copyrighted material that they do not have licenses for from their servers. This is impossible for them to do, demostrating the RIAA's lawyers lack of understanding of the architecture and function of NAPSTER. Big whoop. NAPSTER took this and said "They want us shut down...whaa...everyone riot!". So I say fuck this shit. I have many friends who are muscians and who think the whole bullshit with NAPSTER if stoopid. The artists get no money if you, the consumer rip off the record companies. If some clown goes and buys the album and then encodes the shit out of it so that everyone else can get it for free then that record company is not going to get any sales for that artist and ultimately the artists will suffer from no royalties and be considered a "flop" by the company and not get paid to produce another album. Who suffers? The record company which has its money invested in so many other things that you not buying a CD means jack shit to them or the artists that get dropped because nobody bought their album? And yes...MP3s are an AWESOME way of getting your music out to the masses, but, if your entire album can be ripped and basically put onto a new cd by someone who didn't pay sqwat for the CD then its a problem. Instead of sitting there pointing fingers at the big business think about who the big business is really protecting. Looking over the list of RIAA record labels I see MANY that support small-time artists, so by boycotting these labels you fuck some poor ass punk in socal out of a paycheck...joy..now he/she needs to go on welfare to feed his/her kids or self or wife...wow..you guys are great...way to go. Instead of bitchin, maybe one of you should come up with a way that can screw a few tracks of a cd up so that they cannot be encoded to MP3, thus making only some of the tracks of a CD encodable...creating the "sample tracks". The other will not be able to be directly ripped from the CD and will have to be copied through a .wav recording program which would ultimately screw the song up enough to be an obvious fake.
To finish my statement here, both sides have a case, but I would be more willing to side with the RIAA than with NAPSTER and the legion of teenagers(and adults) who seem to enjoy ripping people off. The technology needs to be embraced, but not at the expense of those who create the art in the first place.
McDonald's doesn't seem to agree with you. It seems they're still franchising like crazy. The McDonald's business model is founded on the franchise, and I doubt that they'd want to invest the time and money to put a system of managers, district managers, regional managers, etc. that would be required to run a "chain" of McDonald's burgertoriums. Why do the work when you can just soak em a percentage for the name?
...if I were a stockholder in any of the companies that make up the RIAA, especially the largest ones like Warner and Sony. The Internet and its capabilities are hardly news, and these companies have exerted no effort to use it for the better, or to protect themselves from it. "Where have you been? You let Napster and MP3.com grow out of all control, until you had to go to court and begin all the difficulties of a public trial to defend my interests!" I would ask. "We just thought things could continue as they had been going," they would say. "You guys dropped the ball. Seriously," I would reply. "Caught with yer pants around yer ankles." ***
The next statement is true. The previous statement is false.
A boycott won't hurt the RIAA at all. Even if all of everyone who actually is bothered by the ruling decided not to buy cds, there are still so many people out there who don't care that it probably wouldn't affect the RIAA. Not only that, but what good would it do? They wouldn't lift the lawsuit just so that people can go on pirating their songs. The RIAA is in a position to play the waiting game, because of their monopoly position. A better way of spending your time and money might be to try and get laws passed. of course, there's always GNUtella. :-)
--
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
If you care to look at the members list, TVT is also a member of RIAA. Unfortunately, many of my favorite bands are on Wax Trax! I wonder what criteria record companies use to label themselves indie or not. I suspect it just has more to do with the image they want to project than actual independance or listener opinion. So TVT calls itself indie as a policy ploy while being an RIAA ogre for corporate purposes.
Having looked at the bands/groups/artists/riffraff who support Napster, I didn't see Chumbawumba.
IIRC they encouraged pirating of their music. They considered themselves anarchists, did money spoil them?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
As many have already said, it looks like the RIAA has great controlling interest already. Buying from non-RIAA labels isn't going to do much to them.
/. before, those within this community are largely what the RIAA cares least about - sure a band like Incubus is great, with a gold album, but that doesn't even compare to the N*Sync, Britney Spears, etc pop culture that goes multi-platinum in the first week of release. That is who the RIAA cares about, and unfortunately those people are also the ones who care least about getting lowered prices or more freedom in the market.
What I would suggest instead is along the much-proposed lines of a purchase freeze. That is, they won't care to see revenues slightly rise on no-name labels, but they WILL care when their own revenues take a hit.
Unfortunately though, this still won't prove a whole lot. What I mean is even if everyone were to stop buying CDs, that wouldn't make the RIAA collectively go "Wow, we're making no money now, so let's give everything away for free!"
As has been said on
For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
think about this. time warner is obvious a big RIAA player. it's also a big player in the movie and television industry. and publishing. it's also part of AOL, which owns netscape. and not just time warner. there's universal, which has it's hands in all the major media. it's also the distributor for interscope, under which is trent reznor's nothing records (thought i'd mention that, as nin is my favorite band and new EP is due out soon, i can't boycott that). it's nearly impossible to begin an effective boycott of a large corporation because they are involved in so damn much. all the /.ers would have to stop going to movies, watching tv, listening to the radio, reading magazines, using netscape navigator, etc., in order for this boycott to even begin being effective. think about that. that's a lot of things to eliminate.
my pet machine
Wether or not you like it the RIAA will and should win. The recording industry has a right to make money. If you don't like the price then don't buy the product-- plain and simple. Boycott them for that, not because they took away your stealing machine "napster". Jonathan
Just FYI, McDonalds and Coca-Cola aren't owned by the same company, but do have an agreement about McDonald's exclusively service Coke products. McDonalds also has agreements with Disney for movie tie-ins; those companies aren't related either - likewise Disney with Mattel, for Ariel/Belle/Pocahontas/Esmerelda/etc. etc. Barbie dolls.
Pepsi-Cola, Frito-Lay, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC were all divisions of PepsiCo, until Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC were spun off into their own seperate company, Tri-Con Global (stock symbol: YUM). Not sure if Tri-Con Global is still wholly owned by PepsiCo or not, and too lazy to check their Web page to find out, but they at least have some ties to Pepsi still. That's why Frito-Lay and the Tri-Con Global restaurants were both doing Star Wars marketing hype, and why most Tri-Con restaurants serve Pepsi beverages, althoguh they're no longer required to (Pepsi is preferred, but if a particular restaurant wants to carry Coke they can).
Disclaimer: I don't really know anything and I'm making all of this up.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Goto jsut about any punk show, look in the bins all the small distros have. I can guarentee at least 75% of the albums are on labels that run from some guys room. If you want some examples of non RIAA labels...
ADD records (Unseen, etc)
Havoc Records (Code 13, etc)
Rodent Popsicle Records (Toxic Narcotic, etc)
Unixpunx Records (Resin Bacon)
Xaos Inc records (Entrophy, Unabombers)
Profane Existance (Doom, aus rotten, etc)
Crass records/Southern Records (Crass, etc)
Tribal War records (Aus rotten, etc)
There are dozens more, Just ask all the spikey haired freeks you see in the sity. Who knows you may find a fre punk bands you like. Your also likely to find some kindred spirits. The punk and geek philosiphies often overlap.
Most record companies are controlled by the RIAA major labels, whether they admit it or not. More's the pity.
Posted by polar_bear:
I'm sure that the Dead Kennedys label, I think that it's Alternative Tentacles, but I'm not sure... is a non-RIAA label. Henry Rollins 2.13.61 record label is also non-RIAA though he's actually recording for Dreamworks...
Doesn't Disney own a large chunk of McDonalds?
This seems to be a list of all record labels. Some are very obvious non-indie labels (Universal's A&M, for example, and BMG); some still are independent (to some extent) though distributed by the majors in the US (Mute and 4AD, for example, are both Warner labels in the US (aside: Warner even owns the depechemode.com domain name because it owns the rights for the US, where InterNIC was based), though distributed by others in different territories).
In most cases, a major-label artist does not see a cent of their cut of royalties until they have recouped the advance used to pay for producing and promoting the album. That all comes out of the artist's cut (yes, that 50c-$1), and can take several million sales to recoup. The recording company, in contrast, sees its cut from the outset.
And to add insult to injury, even after the artist has paid off their advance, the company still owns the copyright. It's as if you took out a loan to buy a house, paid it off, and the bank still owned the house.
Your average streetwalker gets a better deal from her pimp than your average major-label artist gets from their label.
Virgin is part of EMI, which is merging into AOL/Time Warner. And there is no such entity as PolyGram anymore; they got swallowed up into Universal in early 1999.
Universal's teen-rebellion subsidiary Interscope bought TVT some years ago, solely for Nine Inch Nails; as a result, Wax Trax is now part of the largest recording company in the world.
i.e., signed to major labels. Radiohead, for example, is on EMI.
That's a publishing company; which is a technical term for a holding company that manages the copyright of songs/music (though not of recordings). They're the ones you'd deal with if you wanted to release a cover of a Pink Floyd song.
Pink Floyd, AFAIK, are on EMI.
The industry is multinational, and have subsidiaries everywhere. Most of the well-known music from the UK, Australia, Japan, &c., is owned by the local subsidiaries of the respective majors.
The majors aren't necessarily American either, despite having headquarters in Los Angeles or New York; EMI's British (though soon to be controlled by AOL/TW), Universal's Canadian (soon to be French), BMG is German and Sony's Japanese.
What about leather shoes? Footballs? Couches? Have you spraypainted someone's couch recently?
How 'bout those biker jacket's your friends wear to the punk shows (or does everyone dress in hemp and listen to Phish these days?) Are you spraypainting them?
Is it because the fur-bearing animals are CUTER or something? It's not okay to kill cute animals? Or is it somehow of the utmost important to stop killing CUTE animals first, and THEN stop killing cows and pigs and stuff?
People have been wearing and eating animals for a LONG time. Is this news to you?
Just curious.
**>>BELCH
This Ask Slashdot may be looking for a very rare beast: a commercial company that is not in it for the money.
Perhaps there are a few cooperatives or artistic partnerships that have that property, but in general a "label" that seeks out musical talent for marketing has only one driving force, and that's to make money for its private or public shareholders. That cannot fail but make them all "bad" to a lesser or greater degree.
The only sure way of avoiding the key problem of conflict of interest between label and artist is to stick to labels that are wholly owned by and restricted to a single band.
Fortunately we're seeing more and more of those, often associated with the band's website and providing both MP3 tracks as publicity and CDs and merchandise for fans to buy. The great thing about this approach is of course that the band gets 100% of all profits, and their artistic direction and all copyrights remain 100% in their own hands.
The best way of fighting the RIAA and supporting the artists at the same time is to encourage the trend towards band own labels. Provide them with ready package deals at fixed cost (don't take a cut, or you'll become a vile label, inevitably) --- I bet that there are hundreds of thousands of bands that aren't interested in the standard chart fair beloved by studios, yet are ready to take a small leap into the unknown as their own masters.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
It is not a subsidiary of another company. She is the sole proprieter and owner of Righteous Babe Records, and as far as I know the only artist on the label. Ani DiFranco is a truly _independent_ artist.
Many groups and independent labels, have gone broke themselves just because their distributors have gone broke and used chapter 11 protection to avoid paying up.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
You're exactly right on this. Remember everyone, the major labels are trying to take away the right to second-sale and basically have you lease the music from them.
Hamish
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
As other people have pointed out, Ani DiFranco's label is independent. Also, if you're into Celtic music, Loreena McKennit's label, Quinlan Road is independent as well...
To people who recommend looking for overseas labels, I must note that a lot of foreign music is distributed through RIAA-affiliated labels. For example, Deutsche Grammophon, a German classical music label, distributes in the US through Universal Classics.
All that said, I think that boycotting the RIAA because it's trying to shut down a pure piracy operation like Napster is ludicrous... The RIAA deserves a boycott for pushing Britney Spears, 'NSync, and the Backstreet Boys to the top...
Projekt is one of my favourite labels. Most of their bands tend to be of the etereal/darkwave persusasion, but they're more recently signed bands have a little more mainstream sound. Mira, an incredible new band, is a classic example of a band whose success is largely due to MP3s. Also worth checking out are Love Spirals Downwards (is moving in the Drum and Bass direction, although their earlier stuff is closer to shoegazer...kinda a 4AD sound) and Black Tape for a Blue Girl (more traditional ethereal). If you're into that type of music, definitely check them out...even if you're not, they may be worth checking. They're classic examples of bands that would be huge if people actually preferred quality and originality in their music.
(I see that http://www.musicisland.com/ claims to be "the home of Independant Music on the Web" but their web site is a mess of pop-up add windows, unreadable fonts, and critical links that are busted.)
I took a look at the Napster "Buycott" (http://www.napster.com/buycott.html) and it looks okay, though they've only got about fifty or so artists (not labels) in the list. In any case, I would definitely recommend DJ Spooky: he's an incredibly prolific, really creative ambient sample artist.
As a place to find cool new stuff, I'd recommend: http://www.aquariusrecordsSF.com/. This is a record store that does mail orders. They essentially refuse to stock anything they don't really love. Subscribe to their email newsletter: it's full of really chatty, detailed reviews of nearly every good new release in the last month.
Anyone know if Century Media or Nuclear Blast are in bed with RIAA? I don't see 'em on the list, but I wonder if they're owned by someone who is. How would I find out?
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Those who did seemed to assume that copyright didnt' apply at all, and stole Napsters logo just to make a profit.
Napster's logo is trademarked, not copyrighted. It's a whole different set of legislation. If somebody uses the Napster logo to make money, they are forced to throw their lawyers at it, lest trademark dilution take place and angry shareholders chase Hank Barry around armed with threatening-looking staplers and ballpoint pens.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
The problem is that distribution is much harder. Today, with internet commerce getting product to the end sale is becoming less of an issue, but still the vast majority of record sales is at places like Wal-Mart, Blockbuster Music, and other national chains.
Bad Religion's former-and-future-member Greg Gurewitz founded Epitaph, a highly successful alternative label. But even though Epitaph's sales took off as they picked up great bands, they couldn't meet Bad Religion's needs for publicity and distribution. Bad Religion just couldn't get into the big mass-purchasing chains.
Bad Religion joined Sony, and then Atlantic, where they've been for awhile now.
The good news for Bad Religion is that now their CDs are avaliable in many more shops across the country. However avaliability is mixed, and some Sony recordings are hard to come by. By contrast about every thing they released under Epitaph is still avaliable, save singles and Into The Unknown material, which they don't want out anyway.
I smell a troll here, but I'll bite anyway.
The Coke reps call up the McDonalds honchos and say "We'll sell you Coke super cheap if you promise us that we'll be your only suplier of soft drinks." It's good for McDonalds because they get the syrup cheaper and it's good for Coke because they have assured future sales and still make a profit.
McDonalds is free to tell Coke to screw off and fill their stores with RC and Tab. They just have to answer to the customers.
I've seen tons of smaller restaurants that serve both Coke and Pepsi because they aren't big enough to warrant exclusive deals.
Don't go around screaming "Monopoly" at the sky if you don't know what it means.
-B
Yawn! Go away RIAA troll.
You want us to believe that the best way to hurt the RIAA is to give them even more money... Sure, whatever.
A boycott will work great, they'll lose some money, panic and blame everyone, maybe win a few lawsuits, and they'll keep losing money. And either they'll wise up till people no-longer want to boycott them or they'll go the way of the dinosaur.
Shelf space isn't limited anymore, neither is vinyl. Promotion and studio space are all that're needed and those are getting cheaper every day. It's getting a lot easier to produce a studio-quality CD master these days. The RIAA is no longer the only way, and soon they won't even be a way.
Don't give them any money.
If you want to buycott something, rush out and buy from the indies. That way they'll still lose, but market research will show that CD sales in general are up.
Not that it'll matter, they'll lie. They buy judges and politicians, what's to stop them from blatantly lying? At most they say "Ack, that one PR guy was wrong, we'll fire him." You can't expect truth from an organization like that, they're fighting for their life. They can fake up all the market research they want to show anything they want.
You're unlikely to find a lot of well-known artists who are not recording under an RIAA label by some degree of subsidiary separation.
However, there are a lot of very good indie artists out there, and many of them publish and sell their own CDs directly. If you're not into the RIAA, seek out independent artists. You get the double benefit of sticking it to the RIAA and discovering some great unheard talent. CDs from these bands are generally less expensive than major label CDs (many under $10US) and a lot of their sites offer free MP3 downloads to try before you buy.
You can find indie artists in places like MP3.com by entering the name of a band you know and like in the search box and looking for "Similar Artists". You'll likely end up sifting through a lot of misses before you find a hit, but I think it's worth it. And if you find an artist you like, buy the CD! Show the RIAA that you are in fact willing to spend money for a product you enjoy, but you are unwilling to be told how you're allowed to enjoy it. Promote indie artists on your website. Demonstrate to the RIAA that you have alternatives and are more than willing and able to take advantage of them.
Chuck.
"So many ways to skin a cat, and still everyone uses a great big knife."
No, we do not want to encurage the system of "labels" anyway.
First, we need a way to rate artists based on independence from the RIAA, i.e. a web site where you enter the artists name to find out how RIAA free they are. Artists could place little jpgs on their web page's indentifing their level of freedom.
Second, we need a way to find good artist. This can only really be done by mp3 voting sites, ala Kuro5hin for mp3, and/or recomendations from respected DJs. I'd like to see an internet radio program built on IRC which just sent out the URLs of recomended mp3s. Your mp3 player would collect the URLs that the people you like sent out and help you DL the files.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
May I humbly suggest Sutur as a band to check out there. They are put out by Elemental Media, who have a bunch of other no-big-label bands to choose from.
And of course, you could always support humble little me.
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
I'm all for their cheap comps and like a lot of the music, but don't buy from Fat to stick it to the riaa. check the list; they're on it!
I imagine that "Top Five Records" from High Fidelity (based on the book by Nick Hornsby) would by non-RIAA...
(-;
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
Perhaps you should get your facts straight. PepsiCo spun off their restaurant business in 1997, which became TRICON Global Restaurants, Inc. PepsiCo holds a very considerable amount of stock in TRICON. Here's a PepsiCo press release released when the spin-off was approved.
I'm noticing a lot of punk rock recommendations in the comments. Punk rock is fine and dandy, and very non-RIAA, but if you want to some other excellent music, Matador and Warp are good labels to try.
Matador has a ton of cool bands, like boards of canada, belle and sebastian, cat power, pizzicato 5 etc. I am reasonably sure they are non-RIAA -- I didn't find any evidence of it on their website, and they weren't on that RIAA members list.
Warp is an awesome "intelligent" electronica label. They've got cool stuff like autechre, aphex twin, two lone swordsman (also on matador). They are based in Germany, so there is no way they are RIAA. I don't think they belong to the European equivalent either, though I could be wrong.
Be careful though! Some of the albums are co-branded with major labels, for better distribution purposes I suppose. Aphex Twin for example, their later albums also have a little Elektra records stamp on them.
The majority of the non-major labels have distribution deals with the majors, otherwise they have to deal individually with each individual retailer, which I'm sure would be hell.
Labels like Grand Royal (Beastie Boys), which is distributed by Capitol records, Fat Wreck Chords, which is distributed by Epitaph.....which was bought by Sony (who is an RIAA member, but not part of the lawsuit apparently), still give over a large chunk of change to the RIAA afilliated labels in order to have their records in stores.
Don't get me wrong, there are indie labels out there that are entirely indie......but they are few and far between.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
I second the motion of buying from CDBaby. I have ordered CDs from there in the past. Coincidentally, I just ordered some more(before reading /.). They are prompt, well priced, and have *excellent* customer service. I have exchanged several e-mails with them, asking them when a certain CD will be back in stock or something, and they have always replied promptly and politely.
Check out byofl.org. That's Book Your Own Fscking Life, a site that originally started as a book/zine affiliated with (previously mentioned) MaximumRockNRoll. Search by labels (and by state if you'd like) and find all sorts of truly indie organizations - bands, venues, distributors, book stores, zines, and yes, labels.
-----
Well, Simple Machines doesn't really exist as a record label anymore. But, killing two birds with one stone, you can find them on the web at: The Machine at Insound
Your kung-fu is strong indeed.
-carl. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
in order for the boycott to be economically effective you have to do the same for both their subsidiaries and their parent company.
That only follows if you are attempting to drive the target completely out of business. This is the bluntest and most difficult of boycotts. If you (and a large number of others) can boycott a single subsidiary, though, and make sure the parent knows why, they have just as much pressure to change their ways. More, perhaps, because a narrowly targeted boycott makes you seem more willing to compromise reasonably.
Really, a subsidiary should follow the same rules as any other company. If KFC stops making money due to boycotts, PepsiCo has no reason to keep pumping money into its upkeep. It will shut down. It's true that if you start going to Pizza Hut instead, you're still giving money to PepsiCo -- but if only KFC was engaging in objecionable activities, you've still achieved your goal!
You simply need to find out what you really object to and who, as specifically as possible, is responsible. In this case it's difficult, since presumably small companies that are bought up adopt the restrictive and unjust policies of the RIAA. Thus, a total boycott is indicated.
- Michael Cohn
-----
Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
or at least they're on the RIAA member list. thought you were indie, didn't you :)
Paul Ramsey (Formerly Jah Paul Jones of Dread Zeppelin) runs Bird Cage Records. Some of thier stuff gets distributed through IRS (Which _is_ a member of the RIAA) but mostly not. Also check out Del-Fi for that grooving surf sound.
There are _alot_ of non RIAA labels, it's just a matter of finding them.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
www.xlrecordings.com is not a member of the RIAA and they are not a subsidary of any big company. They are primarily a dance label which grew from a record shop, but they hit the big time with Liam Howlett and the Prodigy boys. They originally licensed tracks from artists (hence the bunch of "XL Recordings the nth Chapter" albums) but now they work a bit of everyway. The history on their website gives a good flavour of where they came from. I know I've bought plenty of their albums in the past, so can anyone find an RIAA tie with them? Or even a reason why they should be ignored?
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
As has been mentioned MANY times, there are many independant labels out there. We run a small recording studio in our basement, Barkin' Beaver Records . Click on the link to Gnawed Trees and there's some absolutely free MP3's there. Share 'em with your friends. There's also Discipline Global Mobile, a new label from (primarily) Robert Fripp of King Crimson (if anyone out there is old enough to remember...:)
What's tricky is that we understand it's NOT the artists, but the gawd-awful industry they're in. It's tough for the band to make any money when they immediately go into debt to the label (with the RIAA way of doing business) before they even have anything recorded. Then, it's like the old "company towns" where you owe them for everything and they would take it out of your paycheck. The artists are starting to speak on this issue now and Robert Fripp is a very articulate and bright individual with some very sound opinions on the subject.
This has been a very touchy subject for us, and we hope that some will begin to listen to reason instead of being the normal spoiled rotten web-babies crying about not getting free stuff. I am all for freedom and accessability, but I'm also pro-eating and pro-income. As some artists create and post music for free, some will charge for the music because they HAVE TO EAT!!! The music IS their day job. Just as you code for pay (if that's your job), and I network for pay, so these guys create music for pay. I just ask that we all keep that in mind.
The box said WindowsNT or better so I loaded Linux
"Any person or people who acquire a beneficial ownership of more than 5% of a class of equity securities must file a Schedule 13D with the SEC" There is no 13D filed for Tricom (YUM) for Pepsi. Most of the ownership appears to be Mutual and 401K funds, persons on the board of directors, and high level management. Since the stock has tanked since 1997 it's not suprising Pepsi isn't a majority holder anymore.
Pepsi sold their holdings in KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut years ago. Get the facts straight.
Ani Difranco owns her label, Righteous Babe Records. I think there may be one or two other artists on it, but i can't say for sure. I looked through the list of RIAA members, and she's not on it.
/. wouldn't like her interesting mixture of folk music (with some punk mixed in), but the themes of freedom and anti-corporatism might touch a nerve (or Katz' nerve at least). I can say that i'm more than a fan tho (with two concerts under my belt).
Maybe the people who read
She's just one example, but she's not completely unknown. Also, i don't know her stance on MP3 and Napster, but you can definitely buy her music during your boycott.
Lastly, let me shout a warning to those misogynists hanging around...
EOT
Well, it's probably easier to list the RIAA members, since there's so many of them. You can find a list right here.
But if you're looking for a great non-RIAA label, I'd check out Sub Pop Records, based out of Seattle. They're a widely-recognized non-RIAA label (they're very big on the college radio circuit) who was responsible for the popularity of Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney. Their music is worth a listen if you love grunge rock, I'd recommend the Sub Pop 200 compilation for starters.
--
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
It's a new site - a work in progress, but we got the whole credit-card ordering thing going, over 1000 titles, blah blah blah. Enjoy.
- Matt Lebofsky - matt@clamazon.com
One of my favourite artists is also a real Canadian success story - she faced down the major labels, founded her own company, manages, produces and markets her own music. The artist is Loreena McKennitt and her company is Quinlan Road. I heartily commend her music anyone who likes Celtic-style music.
How do I know she's independent? I quote from her company information page
Quinlan Road is a fully independent record label and management office founded in 1985. It is run and wholly owned by its only artist, Loreena McKennitt. Quinlan Road has two offices, located in Stratford, Ontario, Canada and in London, England.
Loreena McKennitt's Quinlan Road recordings are distributed by a number of different distributors, large and small, around the world. However, we are committed to working as directly as possible with small, independent retailers - including non-traditional, alternative outlets - to ensure access to our recordings. If you are a record retailer and have any difficulty in obtaining Quinlan Road titles, or if you have any questions about our distribution arrangements in your area, please contact us directly and we will do our best to provide prompt assistance.
Matt
--My opinions belong only to me, until you realize I'm right
Plus, I really like their music.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
He didn't post a lie. He said "I think...". Are you saying he doesn't think that? Because I think he does think it, and you are the closest one to a liar in this discussion.
Remember, Sony Records is a division of Sony Corporation. Universal Music is a division of Seagrams Distillery. etc.
If you want to completely make the boycott effective, buy a Panasonic DVD player, not a Sony. Buy Gilbey's rum, not Seagram's gin.
Better still, don't bother buying any RIAA CDs anymore. Roll your own. Send royalty checks to the agents of the artists; the agents probably don't like the RIAA either. They can't stop us.
The information technology revolution is happening, and the redcoats will be beaten.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Since virtually all labels have spoken out against Napster as though it is the most evil thing ever, I think all labels should be boycotted. Even the Non-RIAA members artificially increase the price of CD's. All of them hold on to an almost brutal level of control over their music, and most of them stop producing music to make other bands more succesful.
I have heard of virtually no label that says "Yes, take our music we appreciate the advertising" apart from a few isolated bands. Those who did seemed to assume that copyright didnt' apply at all, and stole Napsters logo just to make a profit. All labels are evil so boycott the lot
Perhaps that will help out?
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
http://bandradio.com/dir/Record_Companies/Indepe ndent_Labels/
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/external/T.Wicks/ill/
http://www.novia.net/~landphil/indies.html -- this is a list of stores in the US and canada that sell indie music
Go scour the net.. there is tons of this stuff. Support your indie bands.. They tend to be hostile to the RIAA and don't charge as much :)
Witty quotes suck.
The major difference being that McDonalds is a franchise, not a chain...a large group boycotting the local McDonalds will kill the bottom line for the franchise owner, prompting local action. It was this type of pressure from the franchise holders that led to the change from styrofoam containers to the current cardboard ones. You'll NEVER have enough resources to combat the conglomerates, but the little guy at the bottom is easy prey. (You'll probably depress the local micro-economy in the process...but that's not the issue is it?)
this has always been a huge problem.
I'm a vegetarian, and I have a lot of vegan friends who wish to boycott companies who are particularly horrible to the environment and to animals and so on. So not suprisingly, many of them boycott McDonalds. But you can't really boycott just McDonalds, in order for the boycott to be economically effective you have to do the same for both their subsidiaries and their parent company.
ever noticed how mcdonalds serves nothing but coke, taco bell only pepsi, KFC only pepsi, and so on? I think this is because the soft drink companies together own about 80% of the fast food joints in the nation. This makes it very hard to boycott one company, because regardless of how hard you try, unless you know about all of the corporate incest that goes on constantly, you can't tell who you're REALLY buying from.
I think it's probably the same with record companies. Geffen owns a lot of smaller labels, as does sony. Things like subpop and other labels have been bought long ago AFAIK, and the only real places that haven't been gobbled up are your tiny local labels that only have a dozen artists on them. And rest assured, if they get another dozen high-profile artists, they'll be gobbled too.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Even if someone's not owned by a major label, a semi-indie will often have ties by distribution to a major. Plus, for a few years now, major labels have been creating scam indies that are wholly owned but marketed as an indie. Pretty dirty stuff. Maximum Rock-N-Roll had a great chart when they did the major label issue that had the infamous Albini article, plus Punk Planet has reported on it a bit. There might be some info on punkplanet.com.
Here's a some pretty current infoAlso, I believe the Southern distribution alliance is pretty clean of major ties. They handle Touch&Go, Dischord, Simple Machines, and other great indie labels. There's also an online CD/Vinyl retailer who seems to handle a lot of indie labels. The name's escaping me though because I only found them once through a broadcast.com banner. Outersound? Intersound? This ring a bell with anybody?
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
TVT Records has sued Napster. According to their website they are one of the largest independent record labels in the U.S.
Why not go to mp3.com and download music by indie artists there?
Try a few of these : (notable bands in parenthesis)
Dischord Records : Independent for close to 20 years. (Minor Threat, Slant 6, Nation of Ulysses)
No Idea Records : punk, hardcore, emo (Small Brown Bike, Hot Water Music)
Troubleman Unlimited : post-punk, post-hardcore, post-rock (Camera Obscura, Red Scare)
Jade Tree : all about the emo rock (the Promise Ring, Cap n Jazz, Jets to Brazil)
Lovitt Records : Indie Rock, Emo, some Electronic-tinged (try Milemarker, 400 Years)
K Records : Indie, Folk, Other (Beck, Dub Narcotic Sound System, Sebadoh, IQU, Make-Up)
Kill Rock Stars : Indie Rock (Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney)
Three One G : crazed hardcore, No Wave, some electronic-type rock (try Black Cat #13, the Locust)
Ebullition : hardcore punk, some emo (try Orchid, Bread and Circuits, Reversal of Man)
HydraHead : the best in metal and straight edge(Botch, Cave In, Soilent Green)
Relapse : metal, hardcore, tough guy stuff. (Napalm Death, Exhumed)
Reptillian Records : a variety of sounds, from garage rock to grindcore to rock'n roll (Page 99, Electric Frankenstein)
Revelation : More hardcore and metal. (Rancid, Brandtson, Isis)
TrustKill : Tough guy stuff. (Poison the Well)
All guaranteed (as far as I know) to be RIAA free!
Josh Sisk
While I disapprove of the way the RIAA operates and most specifically how it "treats Napster," I don't think that a boycott of the RIAA would be productive. In fact, I think it would be counter productive. Napster seems to have the same take, and has organized a "buycott". Instead of not buying music (the thing the RIAA says that Napster users do anyhow), there should instead be an INCREASE in spending on artists who support Napster. This shows the RIAA how much money they stand to lose by offending Napster users, as opposed to losing them money (something they already think they're doing.) Napster has posted a list of groups that are supporting Napster. Go out and buy more music today!
Do something about world hunger. Click here
Well I still think the boycott idea is moronic, but I'll drop in the one I know:
Ani DiFranco's label, Righteous Babe, isn't listed on the membership list and I doubt it's a subsidiary of some other.
These days I avoid the record stores completely and find my music online. My label of choice is Fat Wreck Chords. It's a punk rock label that's managed to be extremely succesful without any corporate involvement. They charge $10 sor CDs including shipping and handling, which is a lot more reasonable than the $16-18 one would be charged elsewhere.
Just my little contribution to bringing the RIAA down... if you enjoy punk rock I'd give these guys a whirl... they even have full-length mp3's. :)
Cheers!
Adam "Fogie" Fogler -- Professional Paid College Student
Someone else has already paid the devil for you. The money goes directly to the store you buy it from, nowhere else. Remember, your gripe is against the RIAA, not the retailers (unless you really are into Napster for the thievery) ;)
Eric
So, not buying from them isn't going to hurt them, instead we should buy from them?
Not going to happen. Being able to pick and choose my music and directly support my favorite bands has changed the way I shop for music. I'll gladly pay for music, but only when it goes to the people who made it.
The RIAA isn't ever getting a cent of my money. Not because I'm actively boycotting them, but because I'm not going to buy music that they'll be selling, or in a way that they'll be selling.
Sure, they can lie and say that the drop in their sales is due to a bunch of things beyond their control, like evil hax0r d00d5 warezing songs, but they'll be wrong. They're going out of business slowly but surely because they're obsolete and they fear change. Nobody mourns the lack of buggy-whip companies in a world with cars. Nobody will mourn the lack of a physical media distributor in a world without physical media.
They can bitch and they can whine, but they're irrelevant. They can sue visible entities like Napster, but they can never touch me or the millions like me. Their SDMI initiative won't fly, it's simply another piece of incompatible hardware with stupid proprietary limits. Yawn. I'll keep doing business as I am now, buying MP3s directly or buying CDs from artists I support and MP3ing them. The only way I'll stop this will be to upgrade to a better free and open format when one comes along.
Don't boycott the RIAA, ignore them. They're obsolete and pointless.
But whatever you do, do *not* support them in any way. Don't "buycott"! What a fucking stupid idea... it's like sending Microsoft an extra few bucks when buying Windows, to support them in legal battles. You wouldn't have thought of trying to end Aparthied by *supporting* the old South African government!? It's a ridiculous idea. If you want the RIAA to go away, act like they already have.
Bands like Propagandhi, who used to be on the Fat label, have moved off to start their own indie labels. Check out the G-7 Welcoming Committee.
Wah!
well, napster has posted a Buy-Cott list on their web site of groups who support napster, and they recommend you buy the cds of the bands on the list even though these bands are on RIAA labels. some of them include Sunny Day Real Estate, Radiohead, and the Get-upKids. being as i'm a huge SDRE fan, i was happy to see them on the Buy list. as Napster is blocked from my corporate firewall, i am not sure of the exact link, but i think it's here. Buy these CDs! especially radiohead's OK Computer /the Bends and Sunny Day Real Estate's The Rising Tide. These are three of best cds ever made. and the bands support Napster.
probably the reason you haven't yet seen a list is because nobody could possibly single-handedly compile one; there are so many independent labels out there in garages and basements that to actually compile a comprehensive list would be insanity.
i think a good idea would be to set up some sort of site that the record labels themselves could use to proclaim their lack of affiliation with the riaa... however, that could lead to a lot of serious effort too. i dunno.
grizzo: totally insecure, but very convenient.
www.cdbaby.com has a bunch of cool CD's (with audio sampls) that appear to be put out directly by the artists. I haven't bought anything from them yet, but check out their policies, and you'll see that there are definitely artists without labels on their site.
If you're trying to boycott the RIAA you should definitely check them out.
--Robert
just because a label is indie doesn't mean that they are sweet and grandmotherly and innocent. TVT is an excellent example:
TVT got their start selling semi-legal tapes of old sitcom theme songs (TeleVision Tunes--get it?). when they got shut down for that, they put up a big fuss over how it was fair use etc. etc. fairly similar to the whole napster "well it's on the radio" argument, both in scope and ludicrous nature.
so TVT moved on to indie music, which at the time (~1979) was punk/industrial. they snapped up a little record shop in chicago called wax trax! and went at it. ministry was signed for a time, as was wire, i think. they were horrible to all their bands, mostly because they lied about having money (which they didn't) and about tour support (which they never gave).
the late eighties came, and with it trent reznor and NIN. he signed to TVT under the name nothing records. the idea was that NIN would release under nothing, as would other industrial bands. long story short (too late!) trent fought and fought TVT for control of his own music on his own label and nearly lost. hence the long delay between the release of broken and the downward spiral. he was moving himself over to a major, because they treated him better than his indie label.
so boycott TVT too! although they talk the talk, they act just as irresponsibly as any major label.
just a side note: what constitutes a "major label?" units shipped? number of signed acts? membership in the RIAA/"big 5?" this has never been made clear.
london is drowning and i live by river
People seem to have picked boycotting as a reaction simply because it's the first thing that jumps at them-- Someone's selling something and we don't like their policies! Stop buying their stuff! Unfortunately, the RIAA is too far-reaching and the group they've actively offended is too small and specific for this to be the most effective form of protest. Since the RIAA is already of the opinion that these people don't pay for their music, a sharp decrease in sales is something that would jsut fuel their fire... if there even was a sharp decrease in sales. As is, a boycott would simply make a slight dip in their sales in the area that they're currently expecting one: giving them fuel for future reports where they can state that "as Napster became more high-profile, sales of RIAA music went down." Just what we need.
As has already been mentioned, Napster is promoting the idea of a "buycott," which is an excellent way of supporting their supporters (instead of punishing their adversaries) and demonstrating the buying power that Napster users have. A powerful statement, if it works. Even better, write to the heads of the record labels and TELL THEM that you're a music fan and you support Napster, that you buy music and would like them to support Napster, too. There are some more suggestions on Napster's site, and here are some addresses to write to:
BMG
1540 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
Fax: 212-930-4398
Strauss Zelnick
EMI Music Group
1290 6th Ave.
New York, NY 10104
Ken Berry
NMPA
711 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Fax: 212-242-4173
Edward Murphy
RIAA
1330 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036
Fax: 202-775-7253
Hilary Rosen
Sony Music Entertainment
550 Madison Ave
New York, NY 10022
Fax: 212-833-4583
Tommy Mottola
Michele Anthony
Time Warner
75 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10019
Fax: 212-275-3839
Gerald Levin
Universal Music Group
70 Universal City Plaza
Universal City, CA 91608
Doug Morris
Do something about world hunger. Click here