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RIAA Offers More Details Regarding Online Royalties
DorianGre writes "The following story in The Standard as well as this follow-on at Gigalaw announce RIAA's intention of controlling the royalties of all downloadeble music on the Internet. These are the same people suing Napster and MP3.com. Stand up now for true copyright protection as afforded under the U.S. constitution or risk giving it up forever to global monopolies such as this."
>these companies (who have their stockholders' interests in mind, *and no one else's*, not you, not me, certainly not the artists who they hide behind)
Err....a few things here.
First, there's nothing preventing you from buying shares of sony, time warner, etc. They're listed on the US stock exchanges, and also on the exchanges where the company is based (Tokyo, Toronto, etc.).
Second, anyone with a retirement account (401(k), IRA, and so on) may own shares in these companies already.
To turn this into a "us vs. shareholders" thing is not really the point. You're probably already a shareholder.
So now what?
If you're a direct shareholder, contact investor relations. Find some financial why maintaining their relationship with the RIAA will hurt the company and its share price.
If you're indirect (401(k)) contact the investor relations of the mutual fund company that you're going through. Do the same thing.
With stock prices being real crappy these days, some solid reasons why a particular company's plan to extort money from consumers will backfire could be of help.
Its funny. I just got done watching the Hughes brothers excellent "American Pimp" and you have summed it up exactly.
The theme of the movie is "why does a ho need a pimp?"
One of the first things you learn is that ho's NEVER get a percentage. Not 10%, not 5%, not even 1%. Every single pimp says the same thing. 0%. Then they go on to talk at length about why a ho needs a pimp - after a ton of hand waving, you realize it is all about MIND share. Its about convincing the HOs they need a pimp, not convincing the johns that hos need a pimp.
Of course, the most striking similarity between Hilary Rosen, Jack Valenti, and pimps is in the "get me my motherfucking money" segment. In it, a pimp explains that a ho doesn't EARN him his money. The ho goes and GETS his motherfucking money from the John. It is already assumed the John HAS his motherfucking money, and it is up to the ho to get it for the pimp.
In any case, if you want to learn why the RIAA and MPAA make so much damn money, and work so hard to "get their motherfucking money" from you, go rent American Pimp. 5 stars.
True, but you can't believe that such power can be handed over to entities that have proven themselves so rapacious in the past (RIAA, MPAA) with no consequences for the average *non*-criminal.
p2p tools are *not* instruments of theft, it's just terribly popular to use them as such. They're like crowbars... powerful, with a legitimate purpose, but subject to the goodness or evilness of their operator.
Remember, if draconian access controls are allowed, and *enforced*, it certainly won't stop with the college kids with forty gig of DMB. Witness DeCSS: "But only *pirates* use it!" "Oh, okay, let's make reverse engineering a crime." Do you really believe that taking power out of the hands of the hacker/common man/scr1pt k1dd13 and giving it to these companies (who have their stockholders' interests in mind, *and no one else's*, not you, not me, certainly not the artists who they hide behind) will solve anything?
Perhaps 'copyright protection' is the wrong phrase. But believe me, it's not about the pirates; they don't cost the companies an appreciable sum, they never have.
About the 'right' to the Nappy... I won't argue there. I still can't believe what I hear when my roommates complain that the school blocked Napster.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
My understanding is that ASCAP and BMI retain the performance rights administration, and that what the RIAA is attempting is a unilateral power grab to take more power back from the artists and give it to the record companies. ASCAP and BMI seem to have remained curiously silent on these issues.
http://drteknikal.blogspot.com/
I'm an artist on mp3.com and luckily enough I've made more than a few dollars there. I don't know how the RIAA can expect to be involved with MY music whatsoever. Not only am I not a member of any music organisation/union so I can't in any way be a RIAA member, but I am not even an American!
I think royalties for signed artists is fine - they know what they are getting into when they sign - but us *truely* independant artists don't owe the RIAA anything!
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
Another option would be Fairtunes which lets you send money directly to the artist, which bypasses the blood sucking RIAA. And unlike Paylars we've actually mailed thousands of dollars worth of cheques to artists who have in turn cashed them. (Metallica cashed their cheque this Tuesday).
Matt.
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"I used to listen to Null Device before they sold out."
gosh... i'm sorry.
nsync is one of the things i think the riaa should have to pay *us* for.
I guess I've now played the song in my head atleast 40 times by now and wanted to know how much I owe you.
Sincerely,
-p4
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