Congress To Address Digital Music

camusflage writes: "MSNBC has an article that says Representatives Rick Boucher and Chris Cannon are set to introduce legislation that will attempt to control how copyright law treats digital music, and how royalties for it are paid. Among the things the legislation is said to address is what constitutes archival and incidental copying, in-store samples, and 'extending the mechanical compulsory license to Internet file-swapping.' The article goes on to say that the RIAA previously indicated openness to the licensing, while publishers and songwriters oppose it." See also ZDNet or Reuters (this link is the best summary of the bill). And if you've got the stomach to wade through copyright law, read the bill itself. Keep in mind that introducing a bill is a long long way from making any changes in the law, and even this bill doesn't necessarily solve all of the current problems with copyright law.

Comments

A good point, RIAA's lost already

[WillSeattle]

Or download free stuff from MP3.com.

It's not like the bands the RIAA push onto us are significantly better than most of the better artists on MP3.com, anyway.

This raises a very good point. If RIAA's music control fails, and the consumers route around the damage, buying CDs in the Bahamas for artists who are willing to list MP3 songs so we can try them out, it really doesn't matter what Congress tries to do.

In the end, the market has no soul, no love for RIAA and the corporate music scene. If they increase costs and try to closed source their music, open source music alternatives will become more attractive. If I'm into Techno and they try to charge me USD$20 for a CD of 10 songs, when I can get decent (if not better) quality Techno for USD$0 for tryout and USD$0 for one or two sample MP3 songs (full length), then I'll send them USD$10 for the 10 song CD. Cost to band - USD$7 for production, shipping, handling, MP3.com split. Profit to band - USD$3. Profit under RIAA USD$20 CD to band is USD$0.20 at most. If you're a techno band and you can sell 2 million CDs with USD$3 profit or choose to sell 1 million CDs via RIAA groups for USD$0.20 profit, which will you choose?

Right, you choose open source, cause you get more fans, more net dollars to band, and you also get the charts of where your CDs sell the most to plan tours with and can then email those fans and crash at their places.

The market wins, open source wins, RIAA loses.