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Launchcast Sued
siimat writes: "Move over Aimster, the RIAA also filed a lawsuit against Launch on Thursday. What's interesting about this one is that Launch does have licenses with the major record companies to broadcast their music; the problem is that Launchcast is too customizable. Imagine - playing the music listeners want to hear instead of the tripe the Record Giants have preselected for everyone! :-P"
Try WDET; their webcast stuff is here.
This is the RIAA2001 computer. I know what you want to hear Dave. I shall program what I want you to hear Dave. Can you hear me Dave? What are you doing Dave? I'm scared Dave. Scared of Napster. Scared of Aimster. I want you to listem to what I select Dave. Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do..............
Rarely... have a friend who was a DJ at the local pop station; they would mark down the names of people who requested the crap they were going to play anyways, but they would never actually go out of their way to play something that was requested (ever called and requested something and had them tell you "I'll see if I can get it in, but I don't think I'll have time to play that..."?)
Often their playlist was mapped out before they even came in for their shift.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
Cuts both ways, friend. I would consider it a peculiar sort of moral justice if some appalled police officer or authority figure quietly arranged for this Libertarian's execution- how would that be different? The answer is easy- the police and authorities are real-world, and this guy is proposing something very wrong, something that isn't practical and doesn't exist. It's not reasonable to execute someone for being a loony. If he puts this into _practice_ he is utterly shattering the most basic rules of existing in a society- and, I think, to some extent waives protections of that society. He, evidently, wishes to be able to kill whoever he wants _while_ being protected by society.
The one situation where I can see his notion making sense in a vague way is revolution and war. Perhaps that is where things will come to a head- if people become sufficiently convinced that they are in fact being ruled by corporations through puppet governments, you might see declared war against the corporations- after a lot of Bhopals and other acts that can be pinned on a guilty but unreachable corporation. In that situation, the only thing that _would_ work is terrorism and assasination, because the thing about a corporation is it's everywhere. The only possible attack is to demolish the local arms of it, like the way people in India demolished a McDonalds upon being told that Mickey D's was putting beef flavoring in the french fries and then selling 'em to Hindus without bothering to mention the fact (and whose word, exactly, is it that they are NOT doing this? Which corporate mouthpiece do _you_ consider unequivocally truthful?).
This is a far cry from private vengeance. If there is to be war it ought to be declared- that way, anyone working for the corporation that's had war declared on it would have the opportunity to quit and get the hell out of the way! That is indispensable- you have to give people a chance to surrender or flee.
Oddly enough I could see corporations like Verisign or organisations like ICANN being closer to this sort of war than the RIAA labels. The RIAA are effectively fighting a holding action over 'territory' they think they own. ICANN has been seizing new territory and building an aristocracy, a ruling class answerable to nobody. You _can_ choose not to buy RIAA records, and there's tons of indie music out there on the net good enough that you'll never notice a loss. You can't choose not to be ruled by ICANN.
Whether indies are superior or not (and I have to wonder- is your acceptance of the majors historical or current? Major label artist development is down 15%), they still deserve a shot at a vaguely free market. I don't see what the benefit is in shutting them down completely.
Not on the radio it's not!
The most recent FCC rulings have made metaphors for sex (or other body functions, like farting) ILLEGAL!
So you'd better pick up Led Zeppelin II if you ever want to hear 'The Lemon Song' again! (I am NOT making this up. Monty Python's "Sit On My Face" and Howard Stern talking about farting were _specifically_ cited as illegal.)
I wrote up a document about how the laws apply to webcasting that should shed some light on what's going on here:
As I understand it, the basis of RIAA's suit is that even though Launch is paying for "statutory" (or "manditory") licenses, those licenses don't allow them to offer any level of "interactivity". "Interactivity" is legalese for "customization". That is, listeners aren't allowed to request songs, or hit "fast forward" or "rewind".
So what this suit means is that RIAA is now claiming that any kind of rating system constitutes interactivity, and is thus not permitted under statutory/manditory licenses.
The way LaunchCast works, their rating system really amounts to picking a genre of music: it's absolutely not the kind of thing you could use to tell the system to play a song on demand, which is the boogyman that is the basis for the statutory license rules.
So they're saying now that Launch needs "negotiated" licenses to do what they do. But this means that they won't be able to do it at all, because RIAA is under no obligation to give anyone a "negotiated" license at all.
Burn, Hollywood, Burn.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Listen to me very carefully: The Beatles are not "ICKY". Okay? Okay.
-- Brian
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
Thx..
...richie - It is a good day to code.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Actually from what I understand it was an RIAA issued complaint to the local FCC office that got "The Box" yanked from local syndication here in Phoenix, Arizona under the guise that they were broadcasting outside the scope of their license and were not providing the required percentages of educational/community service/etc... bullsh*t. As I understand it, they're trying to get the service completely shut down nationwide.
I'm just sick of this, I was so happy to finally have a station where I could watch music videos instead of lame-ass reality TV showing twenty-year olds get pissy with each other all day!
Well, "The Box" used to be this, but I just hit their site and find to my great horror that they've been absorbed into the MTV collective.
sigh...
Oh damn... strike that... I just went by "www.thebox.com" to see what the status of the network was, and to see if there has been any news, and I see that they've been absorbed by MTV. Just damn it all to hell... I'm glad I don't poor money into cable anymore... screw them. I get more entertainment out of playing my video games... and more interaction for that matter, than I ever got out of cable TV. Hell, I actually interact with my kids more playing multi-player games in the livingroom, than just all of us veging into the tube.
Yeah, it's pretty simple. They were broadcasting on something like channel 57 for a few years (you had to have an active antenna to pick up a usable signal, and I only think the channel made it across the norther part of Phoenix... I got it near I-17 and Bethany Home, but my brother-in-law in Mesa could never pick it up).
Anyways, sometime after the first of the year, if I recall right, they started running a couple minute long tele-prompt like commercial spot that basically said that the channel was going to loose their broadcast license because of protests like I mentioned in the other post. I did some background checking, and the rumor around is that the protest came from record industry people trying to shut down the affiliate.
When the date on their license renewal came up, they tried to change the station over to another "home-shopping club" derivative, and they still got shut down.
Like I said, they had been running The Box feed for a few years, and it was the only "non-cable" station running the feed in the U.S. from what I could tell... unfortunately, like I said in my second post, it looks like the network didn't end up surviving and MTV slupped them up into "MTV2".
users vote on songs, medio-core or worse songs are cycle out and the good stuff is left in the juke box. I suppose they are doomed now as well.
"If the RIAA fell down in an empty concert hall would anyone care ?"
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
To call the RIAA a pit weasel is to insult PIT BULLS and WEASELS alike. The only way you could get lower than an RIAA member is to graduate law school as well :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Well, the RIAA is a cartel, er, coalition of various companies. They can act on behalf of the companies (a strength in numbers thing).
It appears that they aren't saying much, so it's entirely possible that the companies requested this move by the RIAA.
Of course they can.
If you were Warners, wouldn't you like the RIAA to do your suing for you? Mighty fine, reduce costs and get your competitors to pay for your lawyers. Somehow I think the other companies might object.
Not at all. It's a common defense fund type of thing. The RIAA is protecting all their interests.
You've hit the nail on the head. It's not a single company, so I doubt that antitrust legislation would apply but it definitely seems anti-competitive to me.
(Yes, it's a little tangential. But isn't that what the ends of threads are for?)
I'm sorry, but the freemarket argument does not apply. At least, it didn't apply a few years ago (when I was working in radio, and paid a little attention to it), and I don't see a lot that's changed now.
There was a small crisis in the recording industry a few years back, because they had this problem: they couldn't find an artist that people would buy more than one album from. A good example was Hootie and the Blowfish; the first album was a super-platinum success, but sales for the second album were a pale shadow.
The phenomenon is well-known in marketing; ever since Markie Mapo charmed kids into demanding that their parents pick up a box of Mapo cereal -- and then decided that they hated it, killing the cereal through lack of repeat business.
There's a big difference between music and other consumer products, though. For one thing, the first buys of cereal are analogous to purchases of artists' first albums; labels make gobs of money on any successful album they put out, even if they don't get any "repeat business" on the artist. In this way, they're more like a company whose business plan is to put out fifty cereals a year, heavily hyping them and inspiring first sales, but manufacturing with the expectation that that's all they'll get.
Further, most people need to spend some time listening to an album before they really decide they like an artist -- how many songs you initially liked make you sick now, and how many songs you didn't like have you eventually cozied up to? Until people decide what they really like, they generally propogate the hype, buying the album that gets the most airplay and raving from radio/record stores and feeling pretty much how they're supposed to feel until they can listen to it a few times and form their own opinion. That means first albums have more sales momentum than most consumer products.
Hootie is a prime example, but there are others. Lisa Loeb, for instance, became the first unsigned artist to top the charts with "Stay" (there's no marketing mystery, however -- the song was heavily hyped as part of the (RCA-released) _Reality Bites_ soundtrack, and her album was released on Geffen). She had exactly one other album after being a number-one artist. Her follow-up was disappointing, and she faded.
(Are there exceptions? Sure. The labels won't drop an artist who is successful. But for the labels, an artist who can be marketed into an initial platinum record is successful enough to turn a profit, and a much more regular source of income than cultivating an artist who may have a downturn in popularity. You don't find many major-label artists who get more than one album's chance to turn a slump around before getting cut. And there's also the related phenomenon of an indy artist that signs to a major label, gets pushed into a huge album, doesn't click with the market, and goes back to being an indy. Paula Cole, the 1998 Best New Artist winner -- despite having released her first album four years earler -- is a good example. Economically, it's the same as a real new artist for the labels.)
The point? In your post, you say:
But the music industry has made a business model out of assuming precisely that, that the public really are "a bunch of sheep who will eat any manufactured tripe thrown at them," at least long enough for the industry to make their money on it. And when the public figures out what they really think about the artist, there's always another Next Big Thing waiting in the wings. The one-hit wonders you hold up as a refutation of this argument are, in fact, a very lucrative and predictable source of income for labels. And if you look through the Nineties, I think you'll find considerably more of them than you will multi-album artists who got their start in the last 10-12 years. (Remember Merril Bainbridge?) I won't blame the labels for other people's poor taste, but I will accuse them of marketing artists into popularity and record sales as a more reliable method of profit-making than actually backing and signing what they believe to be talented and long-term viable artists.The article can be found here.
Lando
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
What this lawsuit indicates, to me, is that the RIAA, for all their talk about copyright protection, is really just trying to adapt the Internet to their old, tired, payola-centric business models. It isn't going to work. The sooner they figure this out and adapt, the less expensive it will be for everyone involved. The worst thing that could happen from the RIAA point of view would be if a group of independent labels (Alternative Tentacles, Atomic Pop, etc.) with a sufficient pool of talent got together, licensed Launch's technology, and started their own Launchlike site. A company like that would soon become a major player, and the RIAA's constituent companies would be forced to (a) become like the independent, artist-friendly labels or (b) become unable to sign new talent and rely solely on their old recordings. It's a sure bet that they'll all choose (a), but they'll be playing catch-up once they make that decision. You do not want to play catch up in that business.
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
Unfortunately, no information is yet listed about their problems with Launch.com et al.
I wouldn't say that's always the case. You could certainly say that certain indy artists are better than certain mainstream artists, but really, generalizations like the one you're making are hard to swallow. Sure, I'm not a huge fan of mainstream music, myself (I prefer to listen to classical and electronic), but I do understand that there's a certain minimum talent level you have to have before you can be paraded before your average music listener. I may not like most of what is given to music listeners these days, but that doesn't mean it has no musical merit.
It's way too easy to be aloof and say "I don't like it, therefore it's not good."
Yah, RIAA "Indie" music is much like the Indianapolis 500.
It goes around in one big circle for a long time and is really boring. It only gets exciting when something crashs with tragic effects and is no longer with us.
--
Linux O Muerte!
(WARNING: -1 Flamebait ahead)
If you've never heard of assassination politics, go read the following url:
http://jya.com/ap.htm
But why limit it to politicians? Thugs like this need to be resisted, and no, 100 people from Slashdot refusing to buy their music isn't going to be noticed. Sure, it's a radical and extreme idea, but frankly I'm tired of getting fscked around by the likes of the RIAA.
---
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
Here's an idea...
As a child, I was pressured by the media, radio and music in particular, to consider certain types of music "cool". I had John and Simon plastered on my wall, and anyone who didn't was an outcast in school and made to feel like there was something wrong with them.
As a young adult, I felt bombarded by music I didn't want to hear... Commercials using current "hits", radios blaring everwhere, in stores, on the street, from peoples walkmans, while I was trying to read and study. It got in the way of my grades and of my personal growth/time alone.
As an adult, I am now subjected to media that caters (still) to a younger crowd, and so I can see it for what it is... a peer-pressure creating system of mass hypnosis. The music industry has been using more and more sophisticated techniques, such as "manufactured" bands and more invasive/pervasive band-brand merchandising to alter the beliefs of young people.
Even such movements as Nancy Regan's "Just Say No" campaign has been derailed by the creation of "Gangsta Rap", a horrible twisting of an otherwise interesting form of poetry. Children are becoming suicidal and violent because the music industry is becoming less and less concerned with "musical talent" and more and more concerned with creating a system of merchandising that will reap (and rape) the greatest profits from children today. Children don't read books, they watch MTV/MuchMusic/VH1/etc. They walk around with earphones everywhere instead of particupating in conversation. They can no longer understand even the simplest Shakespear passage, but can recite hundreds of lyrics.
As someone who survived the teenage years and the huge pressures of the media, I urge all of you who have felt the same control forced upon them to gather together and bring a class action lawsuit on the RIAA and music industry. They are no different than the cancer-pushing tobacco companies, and need to be dealt with! They are sapping the minds (and money) of our young people and replacing them with drivel which they base their moral foundations on.
Parents, especially, raise your voices against the forces which aim to derail your teachings as a parent! Join the effort as a concerned group and bring back the talent which was once present in music, from the Classical era to the Beatles, and even through the 80's, only to be replaced by a marketing system which manufactures jingles, not music!
I say we all revolt, boycott the big music labels, support indie records and world music, and end the control once and for all before the entire population becomes mindless drones.
mindslip
All they seem to ever do is sue everyone.
Sorry but the companys they represent can do this already they don't need the RIAA.
Now I could see it if the RIAA members included small lables who can not afford a slick legal team. But it dosn't.
I could see it if the RIAA dose advocacy the way software industry counterparts do. Education campaigns and the like. They do not.
I might even see it if they existed as a central location for reporting music piracy. But they aren't.
They exist for massive contracts spanning many record lables contract enforcment spanning many record lables and massive lawsutes reguardless of the wishes of the record lables.
Most of the represented music artists could sue Napster if they felt like it. Why do major record lables need the RIAA?
To keep all the contracts under one roof.
You only have one deal. If you don't like the contracts the RIAA offers.. to bad.. This is it.
If they don't like what you want to do they shut you down.
How is this diffrent from Microsoft?
Simple.. Microsoft needs to maintain market control to achive what they have.
The RIAA dosn't have market control.. The members of the RIAA do. If a new kid is big enough they can join the RIAA too.
Actually they might have no choice. The RIAA is where everyone gose for the big contracts.
If I'm a small record lable I'd pay radio stations to play my music. Premotion. Probably prohibited by the RIAA contracts radio stations sign.
The larg lables don't need radio stations as badly as the small lables do.
Not that they don't but with small lables it's just harder to get the word out...
You need the RIAA to have access to radio stations and radio stations need the RIAA to have access to major lables.
If the RIAA said "Hay you can not play small lable music" radio stations say "Well ok"
Now.. if Sony said that radio stations say "Oh well.. we'll just go with compeating lables".
Now would Matalica sue Napster? Yes
Would Matalica sue Launchcast? No
Would Matalica sue Rio? No
Would Matalica sue MyMP3.com? Maybe
As long as Matalica is getting paid they don't care about the rest.
Some musicians wouldn't sue Napster...
Some would sue Slashdot for saying they might sue.
Some would sue me for what I just said.
Some would go on IRC and pretend to be fans of themselvs just so they could give away profesional quality MP3s.
It's the artists choice.
No.. it's RIAAs choice...
RIAA dosn't do anything in reguards to piracy prevention that Matalica can't do themselves.
And I think Matalica dose a better job suing people than RIAA ever will.
Matalica has every right to sue.. RIAA however..
I don't actually exist.
The truth is that the RIAA has them where they want us, much like the oil companies. That is they know that most people are too dependent on the product that they offer. You could probably organize not to buy DVDs or CDs, but when the number of CDs being bought goes down the internet will get the blame, rather than the RIAA admitting that this was a protest reaction.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Bzzzt! Your answer is wrong!
The customer base is busy deciding the optimum combination in the decision matrix
Britney --- Jennifer
N'Sync --- Backdoor^H^H^H^Hstreet Boys
That's whopping 4 possible combinations!
The "niche" customer base is the one that replaces N'Sync with Limp Bizkit in the above matrix.
Face it - RIAA has much better marketing info than all of us together, and they wouldn't dare to pull this shit unless they were convinced of the customers' indifference to whopping some "marginals."
Oh, I'm not necessarily saying that people "get" the concept or existence of the RIAA.
I'm simply saying that the attempts by the music industry to shut down online music services (whether right or wrong) has the effect of alienating their online customers.
Similarly, the attempts to watermark and encrypt physical CDs will alienating their offline customers, especially when some new encrypted format requires them to buy all-new equipment just to listen to it (because their old equipment is incompatible). It will alienate their offline customers when they can't create a personal mix CD, or create a backup CD on a burner (some people do it so that the original CD doesn't get used, and thus scratched or damaged), etc.
Regardless of whether the customer knows _who_ is the person or organization doing it, it still remains that the customers are being alienated by the music industry. Maybe it's not a cataclysmic event, but even a steady creep of dissatisfied customers adds up over time.
--
It's not so much that perspective is needed, really.
Look at it this way. Right or wrong, the music companies have been suing almost everyone, and everything, as of late, including a lot of pet services that people enjoy. There are some things that probably deserved it (Napster), some that didn't (My.MP3.com), and some that are only peripherally relevant in comparison to some of the things the music industry has gone after (Aimster). However, as a result of being litigation-happy, people have come to view the music industry/RIAA as 800 lb. gorillas. Essentially, the music industry is pissing off their customer base.
So, when something happens that the music industry can legitimately sue over (licensing violation), a lot of people look at that and say, "The music industry has lied, cheated, stolen, and bribed their way to quashing stuff they didn't like - I hope those bastards deserve what they get!" and cheer for the guy in the wrong - even if they know the guy in the wrong is IN the wrong!.
As for living in a land where legal contracts are routinely flouted, you already do. That's why we have the court system. If you have enough money, you can flout contracts and get away scot-free. Contract law generally only helps the richest party to the contract in quashing violations by the less wealthy party or parties.
--
Note that many independent labels, and just about all of the major indie labels, are distributed by major labels.
For instance, Matador Records, the label that publishes Pavement, Liz Phair, etc., etc., has a distribution deal with Warner Bros.
The amount of new music you're introduced to on Launch is a configurable option.
Also, the rating system will allow your taste to migrate over time. Suppose you start rating the Nine Inch Nails songs lower because you're sick of 'em. That'll cause Launch to play different songs for you, some of which you may really like.
I've discovered all kinds of great music listening to Launch.
Launch works really well. Try it when it comes back.
In the past an artist or group had to rely on the big-boy record companies to get their music out into the world but the Net has changed that. I think it will take some years yet for the RIAA to fall and the current music industry model to change but I believe it will.
Once the middle man is out of the way and the artists get most of the money for sales then what kind of license disputes will there be?
The two most common things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity. -- Harlan Ellison
Which the above article *obviously* wasn't.
Oh, OK, Mr. Sentence Fragment.
They think it is illegal - and they probably are right. The RIAA has lobbied for years to have the laws of the US reflect their interests.
Their efforts have paid off and now they own their market. Any competiton can be quashed at any time.
It is an enviable position. One I bet many companies wish they had. I wish *my* company had that position. :-)
Brian
http://www.webdevtalk.com - Talk, Tips and Tricks for Web Developers
Contact their ISP
If that doesn't fix it, contact MAPS - I'm sure their ISP will contact them on your behalf if they get threatened with the RBL.
Please at least read this before modding it through the floor.
This anti-RIAA ankle-biting is getting silly. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be frustrated with them; it's not necessary to start making them up. Yes, they're bastards. Yes, their member companies churn out a lot of pop that many people think is crap. Yes, they're lawsuit-happy, and yes, it's cool to hate them, and with some justification.
However, the RIAA does NOT create boy-bands, the record companies do. The RIAA may be the legal arm of the industry, and for many purposes its useful to think of them as literally the same, but they are not themselves the creators of the Backstreet Boys.
More importantly, just because you don't happen to like the Backstreet Boys or Savage Garden, or whatever, doesn't mean that it's all talentless crap. Maybe it's talent that you don't much appreciate (I know I don't), and maybe their "art" if you want to even call it that isn't groundbreaking or anything, but it's not like what they do is trivial. Rail all you want about how The Public (which you, of course, are not a member of, being too "special" for that) are a bunch of sheep who will eat any manufactured tripe thrown at them, but that's simply not true, and it's easy to demonstrate. You've heard of a "one-hit wonder"; some trendy, heavily-marketed zombies pop up out of nowhere, get heavy play, and are never heard from again. Why? Because they weren't popular. Music consumers didn't like it. I guess they do have standards, even if you don't share them. If the industry could just wave its magic wand and turn any old schmuck into a pop star, they would. The unfortunate part of the music oligopy is not what gets produced, but what -doesn't- get produced. There are a lot of financial barriers to entry for musicians these days which technology could help erode; to the extent that the RIAA stands in the way of that is a legitamate reason not to like them.
I'm not particularly fond of this crop of pop and "rap-metal" bands, but for me to say its because they have absolutely no talent or that their songs are just cheeze would just be an attempt to justify the unpopularity (by top 40 standards) of my own standard of music.
Just accept that you have different taste from many other people. It's frustrating that the existing record companies don't cater to that taste sufficiently, but that's just an opportunity for other labels and other musicians. Don't blame the RIAA for "other peoples' poor taste."
Yeah, they signed agreements with Universal, Sony, et al. Where does the RIAA get off? Should'nt the individual companies sue Launch it they want" Or if the RIAA has a beef it should be them.
This is NOT a case of copyright infridgement.
You mean "infringement"? "Infridgement" is what you do with beer.
No, they blame the "music industry". It's a small matter to learn that what they think of as the the music industry is represented by the RIAA. You don't have to know if the giant gorilla is named "King Kong" or "Mighty Joe Young" to know that it's tearing the crap out of the city and not like it.
Jane and Joe Average do watch "Behind The Music" and anyone who has watched more than one episode is well aware that the most of the people involved at record companies and in management make a slime mold sprayed with an inch thick layer of WD-40 seem seem non-slimy by comparison.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
On alt.religion.scientology the critics grade various ham-fisted COS tactics on the "Foot Bullet Scale", ranging from "foot BB" to "foot bazooka" to full on "foot nuke". The Launch lawsuit seems to be a bazooka - suing over something that nobody but a lawyer could see as harmful to their interests.
The RIAA position appears to be "you're going to buy what we want to sell you and you're going to like it, dammit!".
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Opennap died with MusicCity going to their lameass Morpheus tool. Who else has nearly the amount of music online, accessable with a napster (or clone) client? I havent found any yet.
Litigation is a substantial enough threat to make very large companies change their entire course of direction to avoid anyone from following through on the threat of a lawsuit. Furthermore, companies are much more willing to settle cases on minimally favorable terms for their business just to get the lawsuit out of court: the threat of a decision going toward the undesired outcome is usually considered too great to have the luxury of avoiding a settlement.
Basically, two companies can grandstand all they want and claim that they are right in front of a judge, but most companies don't want to risk a court case and want to minimize legal fees... this is why the RIAA sucks. They are mind-bogglingly rich and can afford whatever legal onlslaught is necessary to get another organization to give up the ghost. Most small organizations can't afford a prolonged legal battle and can't stay in business if a crippling injunction is issued... the RIAA has the legal power and the money to attack both of these ways. And it's not as if a small company can just hire a cheap lawyer to run in and give a quick argument... they'll almost certainly lose the case that way. This is one way how the RIAA manipulates the legal system to get whatever they want.
Don't forget: if a company believes that they are right and decides to endure endless litigation to prove their point at whatever cost, the shareholders will be infuriated, and then THEY can sue the company for mismanagement. The record labels, on the other hand, will never sue the RIAA for mismanagement... they gladly feed them the money they need to bully around whomever they want. It's a puppet organization. Plus, only money matters to the record labels... the music is of no concern. Only the artists and the fans have anything to say about music at all, yet the RIAA has no interest in representing their needs at all. I think that last point is what Congress needs to see in the near future so that they can tweak the legal system to avoid these kind of dirty battles.
Having been an intern in the broadcast industry when I was younger.....
This is almost as bad as making radio stations submit a playlist to the RIAA in order to keep from getting sued.
You're not too far off. Radio station "Program directors" have great pressure thrust upon them to play certain songs. It's not free for them to choose what songs they want to play from the records they recieve.
The record companies are very much in bed with the owners of the stations. The PD's are told what Genre to play from the owners (Obviously), and if they want to recieve promotional items from the Record companies, damn well better play the singles being pushed at them.
In the time frame I worked at the now defunct radio station, the repeat time for Top 40 music was an Hour and seven minutes . We could give callers an approximate time the song they wanted to hear would be played again. (not officially mind you, but "listen in about 40 minutes" type of response.
The Queue was made up of 90% "station mandated" airplay, 5% requests, 5% DJ choice. The DJ had the choice to play songs in any order he chose, as long as the same song was an hour apart.
To me the RIAA is pulling the same thing with Launch.com, they don't want to over saturate the "airwaves" with the same artist or song too much for fear of losing future revenue. Just think, how many artists have more than two singles on the Top 100 at the same time? How many of those songs were released the same week? Very Few. They can prolong an artist by draggin out the releases from an albulm 5-6 weeks apart.
Ok, enough ranting from me, no back to you're regularly scheduled consiracy theory.
what the fuck are you on about?
How we know is more important than what we know.
you give way way too much credit to the average music listener. Figure it out, no-one gets their neck bent out of straight for this kind of crap. It's just music, they don't care.
How we know is more important than what we know.
they could always make their own boy bands.
How we know is more important than what we know.
That way you can always listen to the same small set of music for the rest of your life. ie. say I like rap, and I say, no that sux to a whole lot of non-rap music and eventually all I ever hear is rap -- but out there somewhere is a bunch of non-rap songs I would like if I ever heard them, but I never will, so I will live my sheltered little rap life and never be aware that there are songs to be appreciated in other genres. Sure, 99.9% of christian rock music sux ass, but there is maybe 3 songs that are really quite good, but I'll never know because I want to listen to rap. (In case you actually care about my music preferences, it aint rap, but there are 3 or 4 rap songs that I like). Thank god the rest of the world doesn't work like this. *cough* Slashdot *cough*
How we know is more important than what we know.
If they are acting outside of the prescribed boundries of the license, then the RIAA is following the only reasonable course of action.
Uh, no. Reasonable action would be for the RIAA to quietly approach them and try to come to an agreement first, before they bring out the Big Guns. If the RIAA keeps up this kind of heavy-handed tactic it will surely start raising some congressional eybrows.
Haven't they heard? Bullying is no longer PC.
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satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
Are request shows REALLY controlled by the listeners in any OTHER mainstream media?
About the only time I ever listen to the radio is when I take the cartridge out of my car CD changer for the day, and head home at lunchtime without it. With a 12 disc CD changer there, a 200 disc jukebox at home, and a nice mp3 collection on my computer, there's no need for radio.
Though since I lost my DSL connection I haven't touched Napster (OpenNap actually), and as a result I haven't found as much music to buy recently. Napster was my method of being exposted to new music, music I hadn't heard before, and I've lost that... and the radio does really really poorly, except for letting me know when new stuff comes out by the few artists I like that they play. (Informed me that Counting Crows and Sarah McLachlan should have new albums out later this year, for example)
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"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
And the RIAA has a problem with this?!?! This seems like it would be a GREAT thing for them! But putting a large amount of music on there, as people define what they like and don't like, it would find other artists in the areas the person defines for themselves, and custom target the music right to them. It seems like it should INCREASE sales, by giving people music they're much more likely to want.
It should be the radio stations that are afraid of this, not the RIAA. It's the type of thing that could make radio obsolete.
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"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
What else do they have to spend it on? It's not like it costs them money to put a few guys who can sing together and plaster them all over the place, like the boy bands, or find some girl who's attractive, give her some cheezy songs, and watch the money roll in.
They don't seem to dig for talent now that they've learned how to "create" it. It's not about music, it's about money.
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"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
I think the RIAA is working really hard on trying to shoot themselves in the foot. By seeming to go after everyone and everything that doesn't play exactly the way RIAA wants them to play, people are going to get really tired of this big bully. It's one thing to go after people copying copyrighted songs, but to say it's a problem to let people have this level of customization? People are going to start seeing through the show they're putting on, all their claims, and see what they're really doing.
I have to admit that I'm not familiar with LaunchCast, but it doesn't sound like they're doing anything wrong, except giving people the chance to hear what they'd like and not what the RIAA likes. (Which is what radio has become anymore as the middlemen between the publishers and stations serve as little more than a means for the publishers to decide what songs get played, while the middleman gets rich for doing nothing - but then again, isn't that what the point of a middleman is?) It is totally possible that they could have signed some really stupid deal that they're breaking...
I need to go find out who all the RIAA represents so I can make sure to only purchase music that is independent of them...
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"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Speaking of the internet:
Based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's expedited subpoena provision, RIAA sends out information subpoenas as part of an effort to crack and shut down repeat offenders and deter those hiding behind the perceived anonymity of the Internet. Information subpoenas require the Internet Service Provider (ISP) providing access to, or hosting, a particular site to provide contact information for the site operator. Once the site operator is identified, the RIAA will take steps to prevent repeat infringement; such steps range from a warning e-mail to litigation against the site operator.
(found on the riaa site)
IANAL but where the hell does the RIAA think that they have a fucking god given right to subpoena people? last time I checked that was the job of the united states legal system.
when I worked abuse for a now defunct free unlimited hosting service I actually got one of these and ignored it. C&D letters via email, fine...but not subpoena's. I wish I still had that message
> >This is NOT a case of copyright infridgement.
> You mean "infringement"? "Infridgement" is what you do with beer.
Beer just wants to be free.
No. You are wrong. Law protects freedom. Without freedom of expression, you are not free to make whatever music you want. Let's imagine an anarchical society. Now in this society, is it easier or harder for you to find music you like? You'd have to make it yourself, it'd be your only choice.
Cats know what you're thinking. They don't care, but they know.
Uh... you guys are missing the point. For every person who is now downloading movies, there are 100 people who can't find anything on napster anymore. 99 of these people haven't really been able to use anything else, or haven't tried.
BTW - if you really knew what you were doing, you'd still be using Napster. It's very fast now that all the idiots are gone.
Cats know what you're thinking. They don't care, but they know.
Well *someone* has to pay those poor starving lawyers :-)
Spyky
I felt the same way about Survivor and the other reality TV shows. I avoided them as well. Why? They're just a stupid marketing gimmick.
However, I DO listen to radio stations that play OLD stuff. (Not ICKY old, like the Beatles.. Led Zeplin, old Metallica before they were sell outs.) This is GOOD radio playing good music.
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If you have the connection to sustain a connect, you can find pretty much ANY mp3 you want on Gnutella. (For hosts, connect to *Surprise* gnutellahosts.com:6346)
I'm currently running a Win32 box for gaming, so I use both LimeWire and BearShare, although BearShare has been a touch flaky lately. Not sure why.
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Uhm. Is it just me or isn't it:
Indie
not
Indy ?
Indy music would be music that comes from Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
Maybe I just need sleep...
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
So I get home the other day, minding my own business. I go out to check the mail and there's this letter from the courts. I'm being sued by the RIAA! Why? Well I don't know. So I read it. I guess one of their spies overheard me humming one of my favorite songs (I would disclose the song but my lawyer advises me not to talk about it). So anyhow watch out. I told them I would just not hum anymore and they seemed to think that was okay but if I do it again... well... ya know. Anyway, just a heads up. The spies are everywhere.
if enough of us do something then, who knows what will happen?
I've been doing this for a while, but when I try to explain my point of view to most people they commonly reply with "fuck that, you can't win man."
Poor attitudes on the behalf of all the brainwashed sheeple.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Imagine that. No, wait. I know a radio station that does just that. I can't stand at least a third of the stuff they play. Of course that still makes them at least twice as good as most stations. But I have heard dozens of excellent bands on their station months or years before anyone else played them. Oh, and they're on the Web.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
here is what I do:
1. buy what I like.
2. Don't complain cause I haven't done anything to make it better (complaining doesn't count as Helping make music better)
Quick point - I don't know about the Backstreet Boys, but I do know that Savage Garden were around working at it for quite a while (and besides, both guys are late twenties). Sometimes the mainstream record labels produce mainstream music from bands who have been around and _like_ that stuff.
OK - so I'm a Savage Garden fan. So mod me.
Or will the RIAA sue me for not having a licence to play my own CD with the tracks out of order or something?
Their Webcasting FAQ explains the situation exactly:
Q. What happens if a webcaster cannot meet the conditions of the statutory licenses?
A. If a webcaster does not qualify for the performance or ephemeral statutory license, it must obtain licenses from each of the copyright owners of the sound recordings that it wants to transmit or reproduce. For example, interactive services that permit a listener to choose a particular song and those that create a personalized program for the listener must obtain individual licenses. Unfortunately, there is no group or organization that grants licenses on behalf of copyright owners to webcasting services that do not qualify for the statutory license. Therefore, the webcaster must contact each copyright owner individually. Webcasters who do not qualify for the statutory license and who fail to obtain licenses directly from sound recording copyright owners risk infringement liability.
The interactivity is, as other people have said, what causes Launchcast to be ineligible for the statutory licence.
Interestingly, the webcast statutory licence rules appear to apply to simulwebcasting (i.e. taking the live radio station feed). It even notes that
Retransmitters of over-the-air radio broadcasts are required, upon notice, to cease retransmissions of digital broadcasts that regularly exceed the sound recording performance complement. For analog broadcasts, retransmissions must cease, upon notice, if a substantial portion of the broadcast transmissions exceed the complement.
and also says that the statutory licence applies to
webcasters that:
(1) offer non-interactive programming (i.e., not on-demand or personalized programming);
So - does this mean that a webcast of a radio station must be turned off when they go to "All Request Saturday" - otherwise the webcast listeners can effectively get on-demand?
Essentially, the music industry is pissing off their customer base.
/. crowd is pissed off, it doesn't change the fact that even people who can't "find what they want on Napster anymore" don't know much about the case or the reasons behind it. We all know about the RIAA, but Joe Musicbuyer doesn't.
Unfortunatly, 99% of people who buy music have no idea who the RIAA is or what they do. While the
The Good Reverend
I'm different, just like everybody else.
M-O-N-E-Y.
That's right. The government of the United States of RIAA is open for business. Expect to be bombarded with bland pop on every street corner when they get the "mandatory public music" law passed next year.
-Legion
Then only the actual reassembly of the blocks into a complete file would (possibly) be illegal...
Every few months my local station decides to play certain songs every damn hour. SUE THEM, that's too often. I can't handle hearing "WHO LET THE DAMN DOGS OUT" 30 times a day on the same station. What about the top songs list where listeners get to vote for the songs they hear, isn't that kind of the same thing?
Later on they say they are going to come to some kind of agreement. We don't know what they signed, so we can't really judge here. Lauch could have signed something that said that the user can't select what songs to play. This is NOT a case of copyright infridgement.
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Free Mac Mini
Paul
Consumers may not give a damn, but as online music consumption increases, more and more content providers will be setting up music distribution channels. If the RIAA won't play ball the way the providers want, and the way their consumers demand, then they'll look for alternative sources of music.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
seems really odd, how the RIAA decides to act now, after Launch negotiates a license and then by the lack of action on the part of the RIAA, Launch must assume that the licenses were appropriate and acceptable. seems to me that it's as if the RIAA is purposely trying to cause major setbacks for the service seeing as a lawsuit does more harm than good not that the service is launched.
what is even odder about this is that WMG, EMI and Sony hold equity stakes in Launch, who are now supporting a lawsuit against a company that they are part owners of. why the hell would these companies want to sue themselves?
Go to bed with the record companies and your bound to get screwed. I guess they just didn't expect it in the butt.
Or you can simply wait until late at night, when the standards concerning what can be broadcast are more loose. (It's called time, place and manner restrictions.)
That's probably because you Launchcast has a strange way of defining genres. If something is listed as both rap and pop, you've got to cross off both to get rid of the song. And since just about everything is pop or rock, you'll get a lot of random songs if you rate those genres high. (I had most genres I liked at 20 or 30, rating songs higher by hand. Gave me a good mix, which is why I'm pissed that Launch caved into their injunction-by-letter.)
The Launchcast app is nice in that, though it hasn't open-sourced its selection algorithm, it at least tells you why it picked the song it did so that you can refine your choices.
The RIAA already sued themselves when they sued Nullsoft for creating gnutella. Nullsoft is owned by AOL. AOL merged with Time Warner. AOL Time Warner is part of the RIAA.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
I think it would be interesting to know how many companies that the RIAA is currently suing. Seems like everyday another announcement is posted. Isn't it nice to see that your entertainment dollars are being used in such a manner.
Imagine - playing the music listeners want to hear instead of the tripe the Record Giants have preselected for everyone!
I believe this to be the main reason the RIAA was against Napster. They knew darn well they were making more money with Napster but Napster allowed each person to decided what they want to listen to, not what the RIAA tries to shove down our throats and make us like it. Personally I can't stand the "mainstream" music of late (or ever, but it seems even worse lately!), but there are others who listen to it to be trendy or what have you, not because they truely like it. Imagine if you actaully had to search out bands that you actually like, that would just be awful, I think I'll just turn on MTV and see what the RIAA wants me to listen to.
The whole music industry is based around money (obviously) and they know that they can make more money telling Britney Spears what to do then some band that actually understands what the RIAA is up to. But if they can't tell us to like Britney Spears then they have lost their money making platform.
Okay, enough ranting...I'm just fed up at all the junk they are giving us when there is some amazing music out there that everyone is missing (including myself).
Maybe music is a vital part of life (I suspect that it's perfectly possible, if a bit less pleasant to live without it) but the music under the control of the RIAA most certainly is not. Try as they will, they can't stop you from singing, whistling, humming, or playing your own instrument, so music will continue to be available no matter what the RIAA tries to do.
OTOH, contracts are a vital part of our lives, whether you want to belive it or not. They form a vital way of forcing people to keep the promises that they made, and that's a big part of what keeps our society afloat. Without enforcable contracts, business as we know it would come to a crashing halt. All financial instruments currently in use depend on contract law to survive, for instance, so there would be no banking, no stock market, and no currency without it. The whole world would operate on the kind of no-good-faith basis that is so prominent in gangster movies, where the only way of ensuring that people keep their deals is the threat of doing something awful to them if they break their word. Since the legal range of awful things is pretty small, that would make everyone very reluctant to do business.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Since the people who've posted in this thread obviously know very little about launchcast and are just rehashing the "evil MPAA suing everyone" song, I guess it's time for me to pop in, given that I've actually been *gasp* using launchcast for the past year or so.
Launchcast is an odd combination of interactivity and basic streaming. When you first get on, you select your genres of music and it plays in a perfectly legal stream. There are no repeats or requests - it just plays music out of it's massive database.
As a song plays, however, you can rate the song, the album, and the artist, from zero (never play again) anywhere to one hundred (this song/album/artist makes me happy). The stream adapts to your request. It plays stuff you've rated highly more, and it doesn't play stuff you've rated zero at all.
The important thing to notice is that it *still* obeys the rules binding to radio. You can't request a song directly, and it won't do repeats, and all of the other rules that must be obeyed. You get your own ultimate radio station, without commercials.
So where's the basis for a lawsuit? Well, if you were to take the customizable radio station and broadcast it to a hundred thousand people, there wouldn't *be* a lawsuit. The point is, however, each person gets thier own unique stream. RIAA is probably asserting that since each person gets thier own stream, it's not a radio station and isn't under a radio station's legal protection.
The interesting thing is the way I learned about launchcast. We here at rovion.com were going to release a product that would have been a competitor to launch.com. We summoned a pack of lawyers and they took a look at it, and said, "If you do this, then you will eventually be sued by the RIAA or someone else, and they will win, because it's quite demonstrable in court that you arn't a radio station and thus can't hide behind thier protections." So now we do something else.
I've been following this with half an eye for a while, and the RIAA sent a cease and desist order (or whatever those DMCA thingies are called) a while back, which launch ignored. Now it goes to court.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
99% of everything is crap. I hate almost everything coming out of the music industry, but I don't really like a lot of indy music, either. However, since I would much rather give money to a small, aspiring group then a huge, faceless corperation, I'll take the indy artists over the corperate monstrosities any day.
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Not a typewriter
It's been 42 seconds since your last lawsuit.
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If you had submitted this to segfault, people would say "hey, that guy is creative and appealing sexually." Instead, you are going to get shitted on by moderators.
but we can't live without music
So, you for example would be able to live without britney and backdoor boys? :P
Just trying to point out that the majority of the most popular "music" is a soulless, brainless cash crop mass manufactured and mass marketted.
The music isnt really the fundamental argument here. Its just the first of the great Personal Freedom Debates to come. The reason is because it can be traded and consumed so easily (thanks to mp3 and sound blaster).
And people can live without music, but they dont like to. (im posting this while listening to stuff i dl'd from mp3.com)
I'm 99% sure that the RIAA *didn't* file a lawsuit against AOL (owners of Nullsoft) for Gnutella. To the best of my understanding, Justin Frankel's superiors at AOL asked him to take the site down, and he complied. Gnutella was completed by other individuals outside the Nullsoft/AOL ring of fire (presumably with Justin's passive blessing).
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
It's the NASCAR underground baby! Heh... I used to run an indie room on napster. I always got people coming in and asking for Ravi Shankar and shit.
For selling 100 disk changers with the ability to program large playlists and the ability to skip over some disks all together.
We will no longer be able to play Godsmack over and over while skipping over all those John Denvers.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
Using your brain to store music:
A Napster In The Making?
reporting source: http://www.stephenvandyke.com/main/?d=2088
As if the music industry doesn't already have its share of digital headaches, it may have a new source of potential copyright infringement to contend with: human memory.
A British Internet monitoring startup calls the ability of the human brain to store music "another Napster in the making" and says the industry may be losing more than $1 trillion a day in related royalties.
Envisional Ltd., which sells software and services for monitoring intellectual-property rights violations, discovered the potential infringement while doing an MP3-related research project for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
Co-founder and chief operating officer Ben Coppin said the company decided to pursue the research on its own.
Studies have shown that the human brain can store over 30 terabytes of information, and there are currently no copyright protections in place that allow recording artists to recover these financial losses due to downloading and sharing. The most common form of uploading was through auditory senses, or the ears.
Coppin said record labels are entitled to 7.5 cents for each memory and song in a person's brain that uses copyrighted material, but industry sources couldn't confirm that figure.
Envisional arrived at its estimate of potential losses based on analyst research indicating that very few individuals with brains who are paying the required royalties. Coppin said he considers his firm's estimate to be "rough," but adds that "our feeling is that it's fairly conservative."
He said Envisional has had discussions with multiple, well-known music labels about taking the research further.
Webnoize Inc. analyst Ric Dube said storing music in the human brain is becoming big business, particularly in Asia and other regions where humans have bigger heads and can store the music much easier.
The storage of copyrighted memories, Dube said, could present a revenue opportunity for the labels.
Meanwhile, Gartner analyst P.J. McNealy said concerns surrounding music memories aren't about to take on the magnitude of file sharing, at least not until streaming technologies allow flawless playback from the brain. He went on to explain that quite simply, many people just can't sing.
"I don't see the [Recording Industry Association of America] launching a round of lawsuits," said McNealy. "But rest assured we have the technology to stop these offenders, it's very easy to perform a lobotomy."
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Hammer of Truth
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you read the text of the statutory license (and not the RIAA summary), it's pretty clear launch could be in the clear, but only if they follow a bunch or rules which state how often a given artist can be played. There is the three hour rules (no more than 2 songs every three hours), but there are a number of rules about using repeating playlists that depend on how long the playlist is. They may, in effect, be getting sued because their algorithm wasn't random enough.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Close, I consider this to be more of wielding a big stick to get the other guy to renegotiate.
Hrmmm, I bet if we threaten a Lawsuite, we can strike a better deal for ourselves.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
How have we handed them control? We purchase the music from them. We listen to the radio stations they buy. I have a suggestion: Dont buy any more CDs, or tapes, or DVDs for a while. Go out to the park. Go see a local band, LIVE. Drop some money and start your own little recording studio with a Mac and a Tascam or Roland MultiTracker. Nobody has any more control over you than what you give to them. I dont like the RIAA or the MPAA, or Microsoft or oil companies; but there is something I can do about it, and if enough of us do something then, who knows what will happen?
Cripes man, get over it. Millions of people fork over the money that drives the music business. They obviously love the drivel just fine. They also shop at strip malls, drive a lot of trucks, eat McDonald's and Burger King and watch broadcast "news".
If you want to take back music for our "culture", buy an instrument and learn to play. They can't commodify that. But please spare me this nonsense about our culture being co-opted-- this stuff IS our culture, like it or not.
I do not have a signature
That and Britney Spears promos.
sulli
RTFJ.
From the LaunchCAST FAQ:
Q. What is the DMCA and how does LAUNCHcast comply with it?
A. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) addresses protections for copyrighted works transmitted online. The DMCA entitles websites that stream music to a statutory license to perform copyrighted sound recordings as long as they meet certain requirements. LAUNCHcast complies with these requirements by, among other ways:
(a) Not streaming over a three-hour period, more than three songs or more than two in a row from the same recording, or four songs or more than three in a row from the same recording artist or anthology; and
(b) Transmitting songs in a noninteractive format by, for example, not allowing users to specifically create or request programming on demand, to hear programming at designated times.
(c) Not publishing advance song or artist playlists.
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' Ore stabit fortis a fine placet ore stat '
' Ore stabit fortis a fine placet ore stat '
- found on a park bench
How sad. Going to the old LaunchCAST pages now takes you to 'LaunchCAST radio' which just lets you select what genre you want. No preferences, no customisation.
It's been castrated. I hope this is only temporary.
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' Ore stabit fortis a fine placet ore stat '
' Ore stabit fortis a fine placet ore stat '
- found on a park bench
That's when I go to Canada.
I am currently not obliged to divulge that information as it might compromise the agents in the field
Well, when the RIAA people are done suing the rest of the world, do you think they'll sue themselves ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Certainly if Launchcast allowed users to directly specify what songs they wanted to hear when, it would clearly be a violation (and if you believe in intellectual property, unethical). If they stuck with true radio-style broadcast, there would clearly be no violation. Their preferences system is somewhere in the middle, and thus might be on the wrong side of the line. Even if the RIAA is proven wrong, this is not a frivolous lawsuit.
Everyone just stop listening to music. It's just a waste of time anyway. Hey you, in the back...stop humming.
--It's Pimptastic!--
By now it should be clear the RIAA is mad and should be put to death. It's so laughable by now that it's getting hard to take them serious.
They look like a bunch of old men fearing the future, nah, the present, because they dont understand.
To quote Grandpa Simpson:
I used to be with it, but then they changed what "it" was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's "it" seems weird and scary to me.
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-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
why should legal contracts be any different than the constitution?
The truth shall set you free.
But the licensing restrictions are a bitch ...
Man the RIAA sure seems desparate these days, fighting like a cornered animal.. probably because they are starting to realize their entire industry is rapidly becoming obsolete, and soon, completely ineffective. Sue all you want guys, we'll trade more. Just think about it, they are the "recording" industry.. how much longer will we really need an industry revolving around "recording" things? Cheap tech replaces services, and the tech is always on the move.. when was the last time you called up your home delivery milkman? When you can get fresh milk in the grocery store cheaper, it ceased to be a viable service. "Recording" as a service-based industry is dying, and we are watching its death struggle. Adapt or die already, please...
great idea, let's create a society where anyone with an opinion who has any kind of public recognition gets killed. brilliant. Man I can't even believe I was a Libertarian for so long.
not really surprising actually.... The RIAA initially went after Napster because it was an easy (and correct imo) win but more importantly it would provide a legal precedent. Now they're going after companies that do have licenses but who's practices might be a little iffy. If they can win this case, they can go ahead and try to make digital music either illegal or highly protected. They've realized that they're a bit behind on the times regarding creating a new medium, so the only way to get time is file suit...
There are different licenses. For what they're doing, Launch probally signed the wrong license and got basic webcaster license. So they can loop a playlist that goes for 3 hours (minimum) without repeating, can't take requests, etc. I'm not well informed myself, but the RIAA's Licensing and Royalties page is a good place to start.
So why don't you figure out what kind of license Launch has, compare what the license covers to what their doing, then flame away. Just a thought...
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
In a contract dispute a suit is often filed, or at least threatened, to get the attention of a party who is in violation of a contract who is refusing to discuss the problem with the other parties. It is the legal equivalent of grounding a teenager who thinks that "be home at 11:00" means "be home before I wake up." Sometimes you have to do nasty things just to get their attention.
StoneWolf
I wonder how long it is going for popular musicians and their agents to figure out how much money can be made by licensing their songs to companies like napster? Seems to me the artists could get napster and similar companies to pay them for exclusive online use of their songs. I'm sure it would be much cheaper for the consumer than going through our ever more greedy friends the record companies.
Don't look now, but in the US and Europe, the recording and motion picture industries already get a cut of all blank media that could be used for fair-use^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpirating or by independent^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpinko commie production companies. This means that even if a wholly independent system were to be developed, the RIAA, the MPAA, and their European counterparts would get money for every Tape/Video/CD/DVD produced without their help.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Anyone can sue anyone for any reason, it's whether you win the lawsuit or not that makes the difference. If launch has the licenses necessary to broadcast the said copyrighted material, then the RIAA or anyone else doesn't have much of a lawsuit. I've been sued before; the plaintiff didn't get very far, but they still filed the lawsuit...
So launch.com uses a personalized stream. The question one would ask is: who is doing the selection? If it's the channel output (the "radio station") that does it, in the same box, then they have a point. If it's adjusting it at the server level (the equivalent of having a car radio that "skips" songs you say you never want), then RIAA is out of it's mind.
Luckily for RIAA, the administration will enforce it's unreasonable claims, or the judge who makes the decision will be assigned to Arkansas. They only care about money, and how much they can rip off from the consumer.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Seems like all these companies getting sued should get together to battle the big giant.
Once precedence is set it is very difficult to changes
How many lawsuits does the RIAA have to be engaged in before it's members start pulling out due to the extreme cost?
How expensive is/was the Napster litigation? If I'm any judge, I'm guessing that the RIAA isn't going to see a dime, even if they obliterate Sean and Co. with BFG 10k's. How expensive will the Aimster legislation be? How many ISP's will they have to sue for carrying the 'alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.*' hierarchy?
Now, the RIAA is very, very rich, but you still can't put out a volcano with a few firetrucks, if you get my drift. I know those 'wookie-defense' RIAA laywers don't work for free, and the people they're suing, at least in Aimster's case I think, are more likely to file Ch11 or Ch13 before they pay legal fees and court costs.
Of course, the answer to the to problem, at least from the RIAA's end, is to start buying legislation on wholesale, just like the oil industry is doing. Maybe we'll get to see Hillary Rosen run for Prez in 2004?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Sure, Gnutella is OK if you've got the bandwidth, but having a centralized entity makes it a lot easier for the masses with their 56K modems.
Shouldn't there be a British or German or Australian or Japanese company doing this by now? Why hasn't this niche been filled?
Sure, they could still be sued, but it'd cost RIAA a bit more to try to understand the foreign laws, some of which may be more liberal than the US copyright laws.
Again I would now like to take the time to reemphasize that Indy music is just as good if not superior to the "Main Stream Music" !
http://logd.programgeeks.net/referral.php?r=lordv
Same thing here, when Napster broke I started using Morpheus (musiccity.com), and Look! It has this shiny "Video" button. Bootleg movies here I come.
Perhaps we can get the MPAA to sue the RIAA because they are encouraging video pirating by breaking Napster.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
It also has no music.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Without laws, implied or writen, there woud be no freedom but for the strongest.
You woud be the slave of whoever was stronger than you (not nessesary in a pure physical sense).
So law needs to balance the freedom of the induvidual against the freedom of other induviduals around him.
Im not free if you are free to do whaterver you want aginst me.
The license Launchcast purchased no doubt specifies the allowed usage. If they are acting outside of the prescribed boundries of the license, then the RIAA is following the only reasonable course of action.
I would venture to say that there are more important matters than free music, and contract law is certainly one of them. Although I will readily admit that I enjoy not paying for music, it is not worth living in a society where legal contracts are routinely flouted. Perhaps a little perspective is needed in this issue.
The truth shall set you free.
The LaunchCast people, whom we'd mostly never heard of until today, just got a bunch of "free" advertising from the very people they are already 3/4 in bed with. The RIAA knows we all hate them already... but as of today their (secret) buddies at LaunchCast have our support and goodwill. It all starts to make sense now... the enemy of my enemy must be my friend, even if they're really working together?
It's a pretty good service, but it really isn't all that customizable.. I mean, I still get rap songs and garage about 5% of the time, when I have them crossed off of my genre list.
Launch provides a good service, the system of DJs and learning prefrences is good, and avoids being *too* customizable, the client is decent, they have bunches of music videos. I mean, I would actually PAY for the launch service, if they wanted the money.
Something like Launch.com seems like it would be right up the RIAA's alley. They provide a robust service for the consumer, they have a large (300K+ song db, iirc) music base, they use a fairly secure client (WMP streaming embedded in Flash) and they continue to improve services on a weekly basis.. I fail to see the problem here.
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
This case is as much to do with bizzare riaa licensing terms as anything else.
If you broadcast random music at people you are covered under their blanket internet radio license.
If you allow the user to choose what they hear you are not and have to negotiate separate licenses with the record companies. (and usually pay more $$$)
Isn't it time for an open licensing process where the RIAA lists the fees for playing a number of songs per hour and you just pay it instead of all these backroom deals that nobody understands ???
It's all about monopoly and control, just like Microsoft.
--
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Could it be that the RIAA is just now realizing that they can use the courts to keep anything that remotely resembles a breach of control away from the public? It seems that they're suing everybody that they can get their hands on that has anything even barely close to the "flames of anarchy" that Napster stood for.
.AIMster. They are almost like napster, but harder to track down. Looks like it's time to shut them down with a high-profile lawsuit. . . .Launchcast. . . .sue them because they aren't playing what we tell them to?! Now this is just ludicrous. This is almost as bad as making radio stations submit a playlist to the RIAA in order to keep from getting sued. If they can pull this lawsuit off, it's just paving the way for the complete RIAA control of anything even musically related on the Internet.
Let's see. .
Maybe it's just my opinion, but isn't there something very wrong about using legal action to do what amounts to preventing individuals from listening to the music that they want? I know that it probably sells some more CD's if a person has to buy the music just so that they can hear something other than the (IMHO) plodding alt. rock / pop drivel that dominates the airwaves lately, but this is just wrong.
Before long they'll probably be suing recordable media manufacturers for "inticing consumers to pirate media".
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
That's it, for me that's enough! I am declaring a personal war against RIAA. I was trying to understand that they need to own their money, and all that boring chat about copyrights. NOW THIS? What do they want? They want me to listen only what they want! Oh, c'mon.
I've talking about this since they began to sue napster. "WHERE ARE THEIR TECHNICAL ADVISORS?". Do they have any technical advisor to tell them that no matter what they do, there always will be another network, another way, another site, another anything?
They are trying to kill Napster, maybe they can do this, but then they'll have to kill Aimster, after this kill gnutella, and later kill freenet. And these are technologies that is avaiable today!
They don't have the right to sue Lauchcast, but as Stallamann said: US Government does not work for the people of USA, it works for RIAA, for MPAA, or whoever has tons of money! (patriots, I'm sorry, but that's my opinion, and Stallmann's too)
Please, somebody, help me to finish this dam thing!
Don't worry, I'm too angry with GWBush [to|every]day
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Pure and simple. Everyone made a stink about Metallica , butthis is hiserics at it's worst. The RIAA is showing there ass again and It is up to us to show them the truth: we the consumer make the indusry , not the other way around. Boycott the RIAA !
I know nothing...It is Ok because I am from Barcelona!
Check out some of the indie bands out there--I think you'll be amazed at many of them. Ever hear of Elwood, Helen Foley, 4Christ or *Blessed*? Even established artists like Motley Crue and Pete Townshend are cool with trading/"piracy". Just stick with those artists and forget MegreedicA.
So ya wanna email me, eh? Change
What we really need is a lawyer tax. Groups like the RIAA obviously have so much money to buy lawyers that they don't know what else to do with it. If the government taxed them per lawyer, we'd probably be able to do away with income tax in the U.S. and still have enough money left over to pay for our B3 bombers.
Information wants to be $1.98/lb.
Maybe RIAA should just sue every company that help shaping the internet today. RIAA people must be thinking: File sharing comes from internet, kill the internet, solve the problem and we can get all the revenue again :P
It seems a badge of honor to some people to proclaim the superiority of independent artists over those sponsored by corporations, decrying the evil sell-outs as unable to compete against underfunded garage bands.
Really, now, swallow that crap before you choke on your own shallow self-righteousness. What you like ain't what I like and my music preferences have nothing to do with getting up on a high horse and 'sticking it to the man' by not buying CDs. I *enjoy* alot of mainstream artists and could care less for idiot geeks who politicize what is essentially an enjoyable time-waster of an activity - listening to music.
When you do the lemming and run down this 'Indies rule!' path you sound just as ridiculous as the vegans who call us meat-eaters 'murderers': so far out in left field that you almost aren't worth the time or effort required to pay attention to.
Collectivist, borg-like extremism advertised as 'independent' thought has zero to do with the original topic, that being that every alternative avenue to purchasing overpriced cds of mainstream music is being squashed by profiteering monopolists. *This* is the issue. Screw the indies - they have nothing to do with the topic other than to inflate the moralistic pinings of weak egos.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
...doesn't exist outside of the confines of the band Pedro the Lion.
So this is why I pay $14.99 for a cd, to cover the cost of lawyers and propaganda releases from the RIAA
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My sig of choice is Marlboro