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CEO of RIAA Speaks at P2P Conference
Sarcasmo writes: "Hillary Rosen, CEO of the RIAA ? , spoke at length (PDF of Speech) yesterday, during the 'O'Reilly Peer to Peer and Web Services conference'. " Update: 11/08 02:15 GMT by H : Yeah, I removed the Rosen text. Sorry.
Anyone got a recording of his speech? I don't feel like readind today?
---
http://slashdot.org/moderation.shtml
She makes a good point that artists should be able to make money off of their work.
Too bad the record companies screw them every which way from Thursday.
Great. Now I'll never look at a big wad of bills the same way again.
From the Article :
But as long as you're looking for whom piracy really hurts, ask the guitarist
in the coffee shop, or the group scratching out a living touring in a beat-up van.
I didnt know she had that much compassion towards us poor touring artists. Now I know where I am gonna take my deadbeat van and my pothead groupies next . Right to her doorstep! Maybe she would tip us better..
Rapid Nirvana
She states that lesser selling but still popular artists have a hard time finding their fans in efficient ways, and fans have needed more direct access to their favorite artists and easy access to ever part of their creative output.
As far as I can tell, the RIAA is the primary obstacle to both of these goals.
No, it's also about stealing warez and getting pr0n! :)
If the music industry would focus on producing an entire cd's worth of good music, I'd be much happier to buy it. In these days of image before talent, it's easy to see why the public doesn't feel like spending money on a portion of a cd that they will enjoy rather than a rich listening experience that they'd call 'a good cd all in all'....
She's babbling on about the evils of peer-to-peer and how "the public sees it" as an infestation of theives and porn and big evil computer viruses.
Why didn't she come right out and say that the WTC attacks were planned over a p2p network?
It's frustrating to see how the RIAA is taking advantage of the fact that it's not quite as commonplace as the phone to drum up anti-sentiment. This wouldn't be working if it was "hey, snail mail is peer-to-peer, they can steal our stuff!"
If I were you, I would try to stay away from any wad of Bill's. Ew. It's just unclean.
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
Dear Ms. Rosen,
You make a good point regarding the differences in businesses, whether they play by the rules (major labels), or break them (Napster). Napster-like trading services have changed the way your business competes, and it is an unfortunate truth that your business will have to change in order to deal with that. I don't see how asking consumers to 'step up to the plate', or to 'cough up some money on that plate' are going to help your business be competitive.
Best Regards,
R. Hogaboom
*shrug*
until there are quarter slots in our car stereos to listen to radio play time. (Though the commercials will free ... what a bargain)
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
[tommorow's news]
A hacker known only as VA Software has been arrested today for attempting to distribute an illegal digital copy of Hilary Rosen's recent speech. The RIAA informed the FBI of the breach of copyright under the DMCA and immediately moved to arrest VA Software.
In other news, the hacker web site known as Slashdot was shut down and one of it's members was arrested for an attack on riaa.com. The attack has been described by sources within Slashdot's membership as the "Slashdot effect."
[/tomorrow's news]
But as long as you?re looking for whom piracy really hurts, ask the guitarist
in the coffee shop, or the group scratching out a living touring in a beat-up van.
Oh bullshit.
It's precisley these people that the wantonly open trading of music helps most.
I saw an interview with the Offspring a little bit ago. They were asked the question 'How can my garage band make it big'.
They gave several suggestions, but the one they harped on most was giving away the music to anyone who would listen to it, be it kids, dj's, or record executives. I think they were talking about free tapes and CD's, but it amounts to the same thing.
Look at Rammstein (sp?) with their hit 'Du Hast'. Rammstein would never have been as big in NA with a German-titled song without the power of MP3 piracy. Nobody knew who they were in the U.S. before their tracks started showing up on Scour, Napster, and Usenet.
Hillary Rosen is a lying bitch. She's not worried one little bit about money, for herself or for the artists. She's worried about the music industry losing control of their golden goose, which has already happened to a great degree.
Jack Jackster into the castle, has the singing harp and the golden goose, and now the evil giant Hillary has to keep him from getting out alive. Here's hoping she falls off the beanstalk and makes a big hole in the ground when she lands.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
*cough* Britney Spear *COUGH COUGH* Backstreet Boy *COUGH RRRRAHHH* Spice Girls ...
Actually, she's right, the works of "artists" is valuable ... to the RIAA : how else would they milk so much money from today's masses of artistically-challenged teenagers ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Call me pedantic but I hate how the RIAA keeps calling the downloading of music files via p2p software piracy. It is copyright infringement. Period. It is closer to piracy what the RIAA does to "its" artists.
I know there are some artists trying to buck RIAA stranglehold but I'm waiting for the day when big artists (remember The Offspring's attempt to make _Conspiracy of One_ available for download?) get out from under the big studios and the RIAA.
Glad to see that story submissions are always un-biased on
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
I want all you brilliant gifted *thieving* developers to build me a better P2P network so I can make millions.
Not the way to make friends with developers.
-- Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
[insert satire]
Actually, it has to do with her desire to do nasty things with money.
[end]
Also at the very end she uses all of the open source buzzwords to make it sound like she is on the side of open source, etc. The BS detector blew a fuse on that one.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Despite the obvious negative energy most people have towards the RIAA, the woman does make a few good points in the speech.
Two wrongs dont make a right. If you do not like how the Record company handles things, boycotting them is fine but STEALING their copyrights through P2P networks is not justified. Buy from indy labels, dont buy from the big boys. However, you still do not have the right to take their copyrights.
Also, the RIAA is not anti-P2P networks. The question isnt whether peer to peer technology is good or bad. The question is whether these networks will be used with repect to what artists create just like the recording industry respects what business sponsors and sofware developers make. If the RIAA released a program to help warez software, you wouldnt like the RIAA either, would you. The RIAA is not anti-software developers, theyjust want to protect their monopoly.
There's a bit of a chicken and egg thing, though. Most rock musicians (I am one, so I can say this) just aren't very bright folks.
:)
I remember reading a story about how Lynyrd Skynyrd got screwed out of their royalties. They were all high school dropouts (they were named after the principal of their high school, who threw/pushed them out, Leonard Skinner) and when they were presented with the contract, they could not read. They signed it anyway (without going to a lawyer to interpret it for them) on the side of some interstate in Florida.
So who's worse - the band for being too dumb to know the value of education or to cover their ass, or the record companies for taking advantage of that? In their case, it's about equal, coming from their background. However, there are some artists that have never had a chance for an education, but they have this raw talent, and the record company just rapes them and tosses them out when they get old/fat/non-trendy. It's really a case-by-case thing.
For the record, Lars is an idiot, too
She does not have the right to strip us of our rights.
Fight Spammers!
This is an interesting perspective. Although I haven't known many artists (or writers), the few that I have known would not consider making music a "job", just like many /. readers don't consider working with tech a "job".
Good music comes mostly from passion and dedication to the craft. And I suspect nearly all musicians are attracted to the idea of an instant worldwide audience via swapping of their art. If Michelangelo were alive today, wouldn't he want there to be photography allowed in the Sistine Chapel?
Of course, the problem with Napster was that the stuff got too freely distributed, cutting out the whole "pay the artist for thier work" step.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
There they go jumping on the terrorism bandwagon again. Can any one even make sense of what she's talking about here? Bin Laden is going to order Afghanis to clog up all the world's bandwidth by downloading the new Britney Spears album on Gnutella all at the same time?
Just click on the link above as much as you can. Slashdot them all to hell. here's a copy
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
I have to object to the wording for the /. article. What is so wrong with trying to make money? It pays for my home, our school, doctors, roads, day care, etc. I have no problem with the RIAA, Microsoft, or anyone else trying to make money. More power to them. What I object to are some of the inappropriate ways in which they try to do so (read: abuse of monoplies). It hurts the consumers, and stifles progress because other smaller groups can only compete when the playing field is level.
--
Courtney Love gave a speech last year about the topic of music theft, and the roles that Napster and the RIAA play in that theft. A brief quote:
Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software. I'm talking about major label recording contracts.
The full text of Love's speech can be found here.
It is an interesting read, particularly if you contrast it with Rosen's (ahem) desire to protect the artists and ensure that the artists are fairly compensated...
I wonder if Hillary was able to keep a straigh face during her speech!
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
(Please save your flames until you've read the whole post)
She does have some legitimate points. Personally, as a musician, and one who plans to make music a career, I want to be able to have the same opportunity to make money as anyone else. I don't want to be rich, I just want to be able to live comfortably.
However, the foundation of her argument is flawed. Artists get a ridiculously small percentage of CD sales, and this isn't changing even as CD prices close on the twenty dollar mark.
Artists get most of their money from concerts. Albums are basically just advertising. File-sharing programs are more effective advertising (People like free things). If more people are listening to their music because the price barrier isn't there, then more people will go to their concerts, putting more money in the artists' pockets. This is a good thing.
The only artists who are speaking out against file sharing programs are artists that A) don't need any more money, and B) don't understand that this actually helps less mainstream artists.
Basically, what it comes down to for me is this: If I'm dinking around on Limewire, Napster, Morpheus, or any other music-swapping program and I come an mp3 of one of my songs, I'm not disappointed. I'm not feeling the money fly out of my wallet. I'm elated. I'm absolutely ecstatic that someone would take the time to download my music and keep it on their hard drive. They've done this because they like it, not because of money or any other impetus. That's half the reason that I want to be a musician (Incidentally, the other half is that I hate/suck at everything else): to create something that people like - that touches people. It's a wonderful thing when this can occur outside of a corporate environment, outside of the store. If my music was flying all over the 'net and I was living in the street, that would be a different matter, but that's just not how it works.
Anyway, that's just what I think...
(Does anyone else find the Gates-esque overuse of the word innovation and derivations thereof rather disturbing?)
Ok, is it better if I screw some little old lady out of her pension by promising her a great return and getting her to sign over her money to me and then pointing out some bit of fine print that allows me to keep all of it, or if I just steal it all out from under her mattress? Which one makes me an asshole? More specifically does one make me a bigger asshole than the other? This also leaves out the part where record sales were climbing greatly during the P2P peak. Maybe those downloading were still buying?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Get in bed with enough politicians, and you start sounding like one.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
FYI, for that last judgement of character to hold water they would also have to believe that the RIAA developed audio compact discs, instead of Sony, as well as think a cd-audio disc is high tech.
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
Having Hillary Rosen speak at the P2P conference is so absurd. It's as if Craig Mundie (of Microsoft) were allowed to speak at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference.
Oh. He was. I think I see a pattern here and it sucks.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Here's an interview with her in The Advocate. I think it's totally bizarre that her partner is the executive director of the Human Rights Campaign.
I do not have a signature
Of course, that doesn't prove the "would never have been as big in NA" but I seriously doubt the didn't have significant exposure before then. I had certainly heard of them long before Napster (can't say about Usenet, never tried to get mp3s from there).
Sure, giving away music is a great strategy for a new band to gain exposure. However, that's "giving away" music, not "let's get pirated."
This comment...
I want to get the lawyers out and the innovators in.
I think that this was slightly edited... I'm sure that the original read...
I want to get the lawyers out, and the innovators in jail.
Clearly she means "Get the lawyers out" in the same sense that a gunfighter would say "get the guns out."
Z.
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
if the prices of CDs were lower (and the quality of the material better) they would make MORE money
the more product you make the less the product cost to produce, if one person will by a product at 20.00, four will buy it at 15.00 and 20 will buy it at 10.00
not factoring in production cost reduction if the product costs 2.50 to produce, then the sale of the one at 20.00 will net them 17.50, the 4 at 15.00 will net 50.00 and the 20 at 10.00 will net 150.00...
so the lesson is lower the price, and MORE people will buy... and you will get more money to pay the artists... oh wait thats not what this is all about is it...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
That they're not valuable? Apparently it's just because you don't like them.
Okay, let's have a couple of very basic lessons which most of the "Of COURSE I should be given it for free, DUH!" bozos around here seem to need.
1: Does recording a new Britney Spears (or another artist you may actually like) album cost money? You betcha. Recording time, session musicians, studio staff, blah blah blah, not to mention all the promotion for the album, design costs, etc. It all adds up to thousands or even hundreds of thousands in many cases.
2: Is a new Britney Spears album in demand? Maybe not for you, but several million teenagers think you're wrong, and who are you to say you've got better taste than them? First lesson of economics: demand = value. Amazing how many people forget this.
3: The way you talk, you'd think that all commercial music was Britney and Spice Girls. Oh, right, I'm sorry, I forgot that there are no commercially-produced CDs in your collection. Well, if I'm wrong, surely those CDs have some value? Right? Or are you going to say that the tons of good work that gets produced by thousands of recording artists every year is worth nothing?
As much as I hate what the RIAA is doing, arguments like yours make me want to side with them. I care about music because it makes my life better. If music has no value to you, I don't know why you even care whether you can download it for free or not.
-- Yoz
this article says that 366,272 copies were sold last week... P2P is hurting sales? why didnt they all wait to download it?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
> From what I can surmise, the speech dealt both
> with her love of money and her desire to roll
> around naked in a pile of money.
From what I can surmise, the replies will all consist of Slashdot users' love of free music, wrapped by claims of freedom and fair use.
I know some of you are going to *really* hate me for this post. Mod me down if you feel like it but I think the point remains.
I think it is obvious that Rosen would have a bias for the RIAA's stance. Slashdotters have a strong bias against the RIAA's stance.
Is there any sort of remotely middle ground reporting anywhere?
Basically Slashdot discussing the RIAA or the RIAA discussing Slashdot is going to have a lot of blood involved, each side is going talk from such an incredibly biased viewpoint that there is an increasingly diminishing chance to pick out the truth among the propaganda. It is much like political parties talking about each other. They might all agree on a private level about something but simply disagree because they hate each other.
To me, it is obvious to me that a person commenting a Rosen speach as being about "rolling around in cash naked" has to be taken with a grain of salt.
There is a moderately successfully band not under RIAA control, of course they ARE an exception.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Geez, what an insightful, informative writeup.
Taco, I've been reading since the site was run off the server you were adminning at work, and had expectations consistent with your scale of operations. But if you're implementing paid subscriptions, you might also want to apply some of the standards normally expected of professional journalism. In this case, that would involve a writeup that doesn't rate a -1 Flamebait and filing the story under Music, which I have blocked because I simply can't stop myself by flaming every one of these hypocritical file sharing stories, rather than The Almighty Buck.
(Yes, I understand the difference between the submitter's text and the editor's additions. An editor's job involves -- get this! -- editing!)
Hillary Rosen says,
Note that she doesn't claim that they in the recording business respect artists or their work themselves. Courtney Love's rant on the piracy of the recording industry makes for educational reading. Later Rosen says, And of course they are. Look at the profits of the major labels. The problem being of course, is that this is monetary value, and further, they are much more valuable to the labels than the artists once the rights have been signed away.The language in the speech is emotive, as is to be expected. But the kiddie porn quote is surely beyond the pale,
And the very companies that the RIAA represent publish and promote music with hate-lyrics.We also have the old chestnut of referring to illegal copying as theft. Repeatedly. This should be plain enough, but many people seem to have bought the lie. Illegal copying is just that. It may well be damaging to the creators of the material (which is probably wrong) as well as to the distributors (which is not necessarily wrong - people don't have a right to make a profit, remember!). What it is not though, is theft. Let alone piracy. The debate on intellectual property is muddied enough as it is, without resorting to misleading language.
I think the most poignant quote though is,
This is so true. Sadly, it's the piracy of the recording industry - which has, among other things, managed to have artists' work reclassified as work for hire (!) - that is responsible for artists living in poverty while simultaneously having millions of CD sales. The term piracy is much more applicable to this sort of action; what these labels do is not illegal copying, but the wholesale transfer of rights from the artist to themselves using the big stick of exclusive access to mainstream distribution channels.If you have an interest in the music industry and not yet read the Salon article linked above, you really ought. It's very educational.
PS: If you do want to support artists, there is always Fairtunes.
Aging musicians who can't tour anymore should do what ditch diggers and automobile assembly workers and engineers and pretty much everone else does: Save up for their retirement during their working years!
Why should artists (and the corporate scum who exploit them) be the only people who continue to get paid for years and years, for work they did once? If I stopped producing new intellectual creative works (of engineering) today, my gravy train would be cut off tomorrow. No residuals, no speaking engagements, no MTV retrospectives. Why the hell should artists be different?
Bill's aim in life seems to be acquiring control, and measuring that control by the number of bills he can lay hold on with it.
Bill's strategy to remove his anti-trust albatross seems to be dragging it on and on until everyone's thoroughly sick of it, then rushing through a quick settlement - to almost everyone's relief - then trading heavily on that relief.
Hillary's strategy with her greed albatross seems to be waving it in people's faces. Ugh.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It doesn't seem that you got what he was saying. He was attempting to address the notion of "value" as being something that does not necessarily include monetary worth. If you define value to be only about how much it will bring in the market, then everything you have said is correct. If, however, you include actual quality in your definition of value, then the original poster has a point, however poorly he may have expressed it.
if there was an organization called CIDA (Computer Industry Developers Association) and here is how it works. Every piece of software develop for computers goes through them. They own all of the distribution channels, copyrights, and they pay you a small royalty for all sales of your software. If you try to sell your software without going through them, they use their power and money to sue and your stop you. Basically, you can't get a piece of software out into the world without going through them.
Personally, I think this type of sytem would really blow.
Rent? I believe it is in all the artist contracts...
"Subsection 1176:Must perform at beck and call of all Rosen family members"
Do a google search before posting.
You state "one person at 20, twenty at 10.."
You offer absolutely no evidence that consumer buying would be higher based on a lower price. In fact, to support those numbers, the average consumer would be buying TEN TIMES AS MANY CD's just due to price. Thats just not realistic.
Also consider that businesses aren't driven by total sales. Anything publicly sold (on the stock market) is driven by profit levels. By lowering the price per unit, they reduce profit levels to increase total sales.
Most economics professors would tell you that only generally happens in two situations: A business desperately needs to keep its market share against an aggressive/superior, or A business desperately needs to grow its market share to justify angel funding.
The music industry is nowhere near desperate. They have a full monopoly (at least 90% of sales I would imagine are fully in RIAA-member groups). When you have a full monopoly you dont cut profits to get increased sales.
You do everything you can to KEEP the sales you have, and MAXIMIZE profits.
And that's precisely what they are doing.
The lesson is you shouldnt post theories about economics without any knowledge nor support for your (non-traditional) concepts.
Not to mention, that with lower profits, a smaller cut ends up in the hands of the artists, who already get VERY little (beleive it or not).
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
I used to work retail, I know how this works
1 item sat on the shelf for a week with no body purchasing it (15.00 profit margin), the next week we had a sale on the item (NOT advertised) we cut 5.00 off the price (10.00 prifit margin) we sold all 20 copies... so you do the math
0 "profit" or 200.00 "profit"
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Unfortunately, just because she's against the RIAA doesn't mean she's in favor of P2P.
For those that chose not to read the speech in its entirety:
"I will be the first in line to file a class action suit to protect my copyrights if Napster or even the far more advanced Gnutella doesn't work with us to protect us. I'm on [Metallica drummer] Lars Ulrich's side, in other words, and I feel really badly for him that he doesn't know how to condense his case down to a sound-bite that sounds more reasonable than the one I saw today."
A wise man once said, "From what I can surmise, the speech dealt both with her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money."
Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to get paid, but let's be clear about where Ms. Love stands.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The music market is so large, the only way I'm introduced to new music is either radio, music tv, or mp3. Guess which 2 are RIAA controlled?
When I listen to mp3.com's top artists, it introduces me to new bands/music. When I watch gnutella searchs go by, I see groups I never heard of, and listen to thier music.
You only have a few moments a day, the people who control those moments, control your direction. If you only have 2 choices, and both are controlled by the same person, its pretty obvious your going to buy from them.
1. It is the songwriters' and the artists' and the producers and the record company' s job to create that music, bring it to life and to market. That comment summed up the problem right there. Placing the Record Companies on an equal footing with the people who actually make the music. How many of us would have as big a problem with the RIAA and its activities if the percentages were reversed: That is, the artists receiving 95%+ of each sale and the record companies receiving <5%. That seems a lot more fair to me.
2. God, I hope the new slashcode includes a "moderate newscomment" option -- 'cause "From what I can surmise, the speech dealt both with her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money." deserves a -1, Flame. What's next, first-post comments and/or goatse.cx links on the homepage?
The sick thing is that after only four replies, I'll bet the metamoderators can no longer tell which "Bill and Hilary" we were talking about.
Eeeeeeewwww. The image of just her was bad enough! No dinner for me tonight.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Ever see the movie Lost Highway? It featured several Rammstein songs in the movie and on its soundtrack and was popular in the US long before online music trading became popular.
In the music industry, Artists get paid sweet FA, they obviously don't have a union, and they don't go on strike to get a better deal when they are being done over.
Ao what Artists need to do is form a union, and unite against their employers, the recording industry. If they don't do this, then they don't deserve any more money.
The fact is, P2P music copying:
1) Gets music spread around more - increasing the chance of it being purchased legitimately
2) Doesn't mean that without the P2P the music would have been bought
3) or that a sale was lost as a result of the P2P download
4) Sure, some people will download music and not buy CDs as a result. These people are a significant minority who previously recorded their friends' CDs onto tape anyway
The fact is, the RIAA exist for the artists for several reasons - to provide recording facilities, and to advertise the artist. P2P does the advertising, and thus takes away one of the reasons for artists to use a major record label. The other one is less necessary as computer technology improves to the state where a personal music studio is a few thousand dollars, and can match a professional music studio from a few years ago for features.
The RIAA really need DVD Audio, with videos to differentiate their products from P2P. P2P is a competitor, and they want this competition legislated out of existence. For example, the Static X song, Black and White (kicks ass) is available on DVD with the (kick ass) video, and other videos of the band. This is worth buying as a reasonable price.
Maybe it really wouldn't make a difference -- but I don't really think that these high-profile executives are really all that hard-skinned. They revel in the attention. Confronting such a public figure with your distaste for them is an important political statement. And they don't deserve to feel good about themselves.
And there's something comforting -- as in a passion play -- when a group of people can agree and express their common opinion of who is good and who is bad.
Well, music IS now easily distributed with p2p, so the record companies don't need to spend money to distribute anymore - people distribute amongst themselves, unless they stifle p2p - but then don't cry about your investments please - you're doing it to yourselves.
You mean the one who signed away his music so companies can charge $15 a CD so no one will want to take a risk to listen to spend the money? You mean the artist who's best chance at being heard to become popular is the ability to people to share music with each other, which RIAA is making sure won't happen so people can continue to not hear and not buy it, and the artists are bound not to share their music on p2p systems? This argument is a vague and potentially unfounded as its opposite counterpart. But then "I'm sure you'd like to believe its really the struggling artists who are really losing out."
How about: "morality is sufficient ground for putting a stop to IP". It all depends on a person's viewpoint. Please RIAA, don't presume to talk to me about morality, when you want to stifle the freedoms upon which the US ideals were built.
So then why is RIAA always trying to change the laws? If you really believe the current system is working, why are you still meddling with it?
So RIAA builds a complicated system, then whines about companies not being able to navigate it, and as a result expect people to foot the bill? Well, that is both a clever and "legitimate" business model, i must admit.
Uh huh. Was at a talk the other day and the speaker said the same thing, albiet somewhat ironically: "Napster made music so abudant and prevelant on everyone's computer, I was afraid music would go extinct": the more of something you see, the more likely it is to disappear. Like computers - everyone's got one so in the future we'll probably have less.
And finally, I generally resent the rather simple argument of "legitimacy" and the interpretation of "legitimate": only those to whom RIAA gives its blessing. Its the very typical argument: "If you'd just do everything exactly as I say and like, we'd have no problem. Why are you causing so much problems? Lets `work togther': i'll stop everyone else from doing things which make me lose money, you start thinking up ways of making me more money."
It's precisley these people that the wantonly open trading of music helps most.
Damn right! As anyone who bothers to go out and support their local music scene knows, 99% of "garage bands" just want to play music, and the more people that hear their music the better. I was just talking to my friend this morning about how he had run into the guitar players for one of the hardcore bands around here over the weekend. The guitar player had been really nice and insisted that he take one of their demos (the only merchandise they have) for free so he would know the lyrics next time my friend saw them play.
The more I hear about these major labels and their bands whine about money, the more it makes me glad that I'm a part of the local independent music scene. There's a lot of absolutely incredible bands that I cannot believe how good they are and yet no one outside of the maybe 200 people who show up every weekend to go to shows knows about them. Come on people: if you're so sick of these major labels raping artists, and the artists bitching that their new CD is only selling a few million copies and that you owe them something, go out and support your scene! There are plenty of incredible bands in your area that would be more than happy for you to just come and hear them play.
And if you're in the NC area be sure to check out NCMusic.com for show listings or NCPunk.net for punk/emo/indie rock show listings and resources. And you must get off your lazy ass and see Beloved, Aria, Hopesfall, One Six Conspiracy, One Amazin' Kid, and Near the Never.
Unlike Star Trek (tm) where holographic docters, even though they are computer programs, cannot be backed up or copied (making the entire plot of several episodes meaningless) in the real world data can be copied any number of times.
I have long time made a simple vow - i won't buy music cds. Its a very simple thing to grasp: Refusing to buy cds is my legal right, as is for example refusing to buy anything coloured purple. Seeing as i won't buy cds, anything i do has no effect on my cd-buying potential. And causes no money to be lost. Therefore, downloading music off the internet is acceptable seeing as i was not going to buy the cd of it, so i will either: a) download and listen to some music or b) not listen to that music ever. A similar thing happens when you listen to the radio - as the radio station has no way of knowing when _i_ am listening to them, i can for example, turn of the radio for 30 secs everytime they go to commercials. The radio station compiles its listener base from other sources and therefore gets payed for the adverts if i am watching or not.
This moves on to another point - seeing as in America and Europe, speech/expression is legally free, and music is speech/(expression), restricting what musical content i can access or express on the internet is restriction of my freedom of speech.
If i was to perform some original music and put it on the internet that would be fine, but, if i was to perform an existing 'copyrighted' piece of music to such perfection that a court could not tell the difference between my performance and the original performance, than that would be restricted speech/expression, but, seeing as no speech/expression can be restricted if it is all free, i have the right to listen to anything regardless.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Bananarama?
Oh, so you think my joke was in poor... taste...? Maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew? (-:
On a side note, I've always wondered about the banana and anchovy pizzas favoured by UU's Librarian.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
>Bill's aim in life...
>Hillary's strategy...
Are you sure we're talking about the right Bill and Hillary in the context of a 'wad'?
Rosen talks about problems the p2p community has to fix (quote brough to you by pdftotext):
Increasing security concerns and even national security concerns at this
delicate time. Peer-to-peer will get attention because of the soldier risk in denial
of service attacks, the spread of viruses that endanger national computer
network infrastructure and other things of current concern.
The fact that it is also used as a transmitter of child pornography has not
gone unnoticed by many federal and law enforcement authorities.
Unless the legitimate peer-to-peer community addresses these problems,
proactively, the fundamental benefits of peer-to-peer will always be limited.
I think that this is ridiculous - how is that a problem of p2p or specific to it? Child pornography is delivered with good old snail mail all the time, the #1 source of virii is email, but nobody asks responsible parties for these two useful services to fix the problems to make mail and email less limited.
The problems are inherent to the services. Information is delivered, and that information may be "flawed" (child pornography, virii).
Peer-2-Peer pressure perhaps?
-- The Hoss Man
"The truth is, since all record companies do with their profits is keep people employed to invest in new music, this is about artists as much as anyone."
So let me make sure I understand this. All the profits that a record label makes goes into the pockets of their employees so that they can dump the money directly back into the music industry? I'm sure Hillary's got the mother of all CD collections considering how much she's got to be making.
Riight. That would explain, then, why the last concert I attended -- performed by two guitarists in a coffee shop (Peter Mulvey and Erin McKeown, if anyone cares) -- both artists encouraged people to record and spread the show itself, and even went as far as to say "Copy our CDs for your friends. Tell 'em that if they like it, they can pick up their own copy at our websites."
Even ignoring the terminology ("piracy"), it seems that those two starving-artist types are interest in (wait for it..) people hearing their music. What a novel idea. Too bad Hillary will never get it, nor does she want to.
Are you sure we're talking about the right Bill and Hillary in the context of a 'wad'?
I don't think Bill will be shooting a wad at Hillary anytime soon.
-20 Sick & twisted
Reboot macht Frei.
I don't know if they're independent or not. But everyone should realize that just because a band is signed to an "independent" label doesn't mean they're *really* independent. Many so-called independent labels are actually subsidiaries of the big RIAA labels.
Why are you here Mr. AC? To get the respect that you feel you truly deserve? You think that because
The only possible reason I can see for anyone really wanting
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
It's understandable that some people can't take a joke, but either accept it or reject it. I submit a lot of stories with stupid remarks, and that's probably why I have so many rejects. I would also guess that at least 1 out of 10 of them are almost as stupid as remarks some of the editors make after a quoted submission. I made a joke, big deal. But for the record, I'll add a note to my submission saying that you can edit out parts if I feel like getting the story out to people is more important than my brilliantly humorous opinion. I didn't do that, and I didn't get an email asking if I would allow that to get the story posted. So I fart in your general direction.
Before copyrights, we got Mozart and Bach. After copyrights, we get Britney Spears and N'Sync. I think the argument that copyrights are necessary in order to create great music are a little thin...
This will never happen, but!
The RIAA adds what value to an artist? Very little. It is Michael Stipes who writes the songs and creates the music. Picture an REM recording. Now take away the Rolling Stones ads and the jewel case and the Mtv promos. Now put the CD on your player and 'just hit play'. What do you hear? A very beautiful rendition of "Everyone Hurts".
See, the internet was Supposed to do away with no-value-added middle men who control the Ways and Means of Production (and Distribution), but those middle men with their campaign finance contributions are making legislators bend over backwards to accomodate them.
Now, the Natural Future of this - the result of a Natural Progression - is a world in which the promoters exist at mp3.com and the artists are debuted there and people either like them or don't. Their popularity is measured by number of unique downloads, but they make no revenue from their music per se. They make their money by selling the one scarce commodity that is left: their concerts.
Music becomes free, the Free Market dictates the price of the concerts, the artists make money through promoting their work themselves (they decide how much to pump into their shows and ticket prices subsidize that), and the only ones crying are members of the nefarious RIAA.
The real difference is in the distribution of wealth. There are less numbers of Rolling Stones (blockbuster megastars), but many more Harry Chapins (5,000 seat moderate successes).
My vision of economic freedom as brought to you by Al Gore.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
I'll say one more thing:
Hilary, MORALITY has NOTHING to do with this! Copyright is just an arrangement between the Government and the people to keep the creative juices flowing. Think of it in that way, please. I hate the morality argument. Just because you decided to put a bunch of money into something doesn't give it a higher spiritual weight. And just because something was legislated doesn't give it moral weight.
The law of the internet should prevail, or we will fail to see the promise that is the internet. It is like the law of the jungle: the situation has changed, and your industry is a dinosaur. You and your senatorial bed-mates really ought to open your eyes and see that. Or you dinosaurs will kill the New World.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
So instead of whining about it, the RIAA should play by the rules of capitalism and figure out a way to capitalize on it. The P2P networks are not defeatable in a meaningful way. They will always be ahead of the RIAA, which will hire squadrons of monkeys to track everybody's IP addresses and file complaints with ISPs until stealth P2P comes around, etc.etc.etc.
This is just stupid. Napster did the RIAA a HUGE service. They showed them where the market is. So open a god-damned for-subscription service where I can share music in the same way I did with Napster. I'd be willing to pay a subscription fee, say 10 dollars a month, plus say 25 to 50 cents per song I download in order to reward artists for making music I like. That's what it's worth to me, and I think a lot of others who like downloading and controlling the music they listen to would feel the same way. It's really no different from radio, except the money is coming from me instead of from advertisers and I have control rather than the station managers.
If you don't like this business model, come up with another one that's palatable. But don't try to sue us back to the Stone Age or to put the genie back in the bottle. He won't go back in. The internet isn't going away. Deal with it. Furthermore, though two wrongs don't make a right, the reality is that the second wrong here is not screwing anybody out of any money. CD sales have generally been up, and people will still buy CDs especially of lesser known artists to support them.
I'm sorry, but while in the abstract it may not be "right" for me to download lots of MP3s, it's not "right" for me to pay 15 dollars for a CD with one song I might or might not want, and it's not "right" that 30-40 cents of every CD goes to the artists who make the music, and as I said above, this is a capitalist world and a capitalist society, and if you aren't selling something, somebody else will come up with a way to provide it, and if they can provide it for free, people will take it. And if you try to use the legal system to suppress that, the technology will improve until it's unregulatable - these aren't physical goods, and they can't be thought of as such.
I think everyone has missed the point. Hardware and software that makes it possible (and easy) to illegally distribute copyrighted data is not a problem. The problem is that people (yes, us) use these networks and applications to distribute data illegally. Napster didn't do anything wrong. The people using the service did. They don't need to breach our freedom to stop this. They need to bring charges against the people who are breaking the law. It's not a difficult thing to find someone who is sharing files on a P2P network, especially if you can get search warrants for server rooms and things of that nature. Leave my rights (digital and otherwise) alone.
I keep forgetting my place. Jesus is for losers. Why do I still play to the crowd?
I'm yet to see any numbers of any kind (statistics, annual revenue, etc) that depict a drop in RIAA sales due to P2P sharing and MP3 technology.
Surely these should be absolutely ESSENTIAL to the RIAA case for proving that the artists are being ripped off. Why has the RIAA not produced these figures? Or have they, and simply not publicised them?
If anyone has info on this i would be particularly interested.
Thanks for your comments!
...). The arts are regarded as culturally valuable, and as such need to be supported. However the recording industry only rewards those whose work is wildly popular. The market is not the best solution to this particular problem, as it typically rewards the least offensive rather than the most valuable; relies on artificial protections to be viable; and when it does reward, does so out of all proportion to the energies that went into creation. Alternatives and their discussion are, I feel, too important and long to be discussed in a quick slashdot comment though.
As the article you linked to states, it certainly is a high-risk field for new entrants. However it is hard to deny that those major labels that have survived, are profitting. The article itself states that the profit comes from their back catalogue - of the music which those companies own. I stand by my statement that the music itself is indeed a valuable asset.
I don't think I've been unfairly manipulative of the description of the current state of the music industry. When a few large companies hold the keys to commercial success, they get to make the rules. One of these rules is that artists no longer own their own creative works. Artists may have the right to be independent, but it's a very tough choice given the current situation. As you say, marketing and promotion are hard without a big label's backing.
Importantly though, I think you should be careful not to make a false dichotomy. The current system can be reprehensible while the alternative can be better than 'not getting paid at all for a recording'.
Many people engage in creative work, and many of these people create things that can be freely (if not necessarily legally) copied at little or no cost. Most do not rely upon huge popularity and royalties for recompense (for example, scientists, academics, visual artists,
What I find funny is that what was said is almost a valid point and it may even be believable except that the RIAA has shown time and time again that all they care about is money. Just watch one VH1 "Behind the Music" and you're sure to see what the RIAA is all about. Almost every single one of the artists that the shows feature had to file for bankruptcy or was in serious financial trouble and had to consult attorneys to get them out of their slave contracts. All I can say is that despite the partial validity of the statement, it's still all a bunch of big business crap.
Music artists: you're unknown? you want to get known? fuck RIAA, if you're too little, they won't care, if you're big, you're probably screwed already with a 1000 pages contract.
/disk than what ANYTHING THESE BIG RECORD LABELS WILL EVER OFFER YOU.
The hell with anyone who claims MP3 traders make artists starve. With the price of CD-Rs right now, an artist would make far more doing a burn production by a little nerd in a basement and going to sell his stuff and probably making a much bigger profit
Who cares about exportation, it's not them that will get you known, it's the quality of your content and the ear to ear, distribute your music, get popular, and CASH IN with shows, tshirts, and maybe someone with big courage could emulate (was it a part of CDNOW's buisness model?) the idea of having online music a la mp3.com and a burning CDs service to which you'd get royalties. and make the CDs cheap, 4$ each MAXIMUM with maybe a minimal quantity buyout (so better price to cut shipping and encourage to buy even more, etc etc) and not converted from Mp3 but original stuff. 4$ for ~10 songs minus 1$ for a good quality CD (in quantities you can get a fairly decent price, we're talking about a buisness anyways), that would come to 30cents per song, give 5 cents per song to the service, get 25cents per song sold, if you reach 100,000 people that way, that's an EASY 25K$, that will be way more than what you would have gotten with RIAA, because you need a lawyer for X contract, you need an accountant you need to payback X/Y of the advertizing you need to pay this and that fee, screw that, my model benefit BOTH the consumer (cheaper CDs) and the artist (you're good, you'll get paid accordingly), 100,000 may seem big, but when you consider the amount of stuff swapped per month (don't remember the numbers) even if only 5% of that total traffic goes to a legit buisness like I've proposed, it'll be way enough.
And like I said, there's always Shows, merchandise, etc.. There's a way to circumvent the current system for the people that aren't tied in a bigass contract.... I just hope they'll be smart enough.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
at least nsync and britney spears fans won't be suckered into dvd-audio and sacd.
no no no. go back, re-read what i just said, and savor its wisdom.
She continues to propergate the myth that most artists depend on copyright to earn their money. That is crap.
Here is a thought experiment. Think of all the artists that live in your local community and who earn their living through music. Initially most people this of artists like Brittany Spears, but she isn't local. The people on you list end up like this: the piano man at the local upscale restaurant, the music teachers who teach your kids at school, the city orchestra, the performers who play at weddings, the band at the school prom, the buskers in the city mall, the national anthem singer at the local football game. Now how many of those people depend or need copyright to earn their living? Unless you live in a big city the answer will be none. If you live in a big city you may have a band or two who has hit the big time - and then the answer will be a few percent.
If it is like that in your community it is going to be like that in most communities. Ergo most musicians don't give a rats about copyright. In fact most of them would make a better living - tyey would have to fork out less royalties if there were no copyright.
Perhaps you are having trouble believing this. Try the same argument with software. Most people on slashdot will know many more programmers than they know musicans. They may develop commercial packages, they may do in house work, they may write scripts to maintain networks or web pagesCopyright only effects those that develop commercial packages, who are a small percentage of the total. But how many of those people who develop software commercial packages actually depend on copyright to protect their income? Well I work for a firm that has developed several such packages. Like most such firms we developed a software package for a particular industry. The people in the industry know nothing about software or computers, so we don't just sell the software, we install and configure it, and then supply ongoing support. For the majority of our customers the software without this service would be useless. Ergo I and my fellow programmers don't need or depend on copyright.
Now there are of course programmers who work microsoft, borland, or some such company who this does not apply to - without copyright they would be out of a job. But you know what - I personally don't know any. In fact I can't think of a single software company in the state I live in that does depend on copyright. Its a small state - just 2-3M people. Within Australia there might be a couple of hundred programmers who do depend on copyright for their jobs. A couple of hundred out of 10's of thousands.
The argument based on the "poor struggling artist" is all hand waving and bullshit. Don't be sucked in.
at least nsync and britney spears fans won't be suckered into dvd-audio and sacd.
no no no. go back, re-read what i just said, and savor its wisdom.
Maybe so, but you're forgetting that N'Sync and Britney Spears fans, for the most part, wouldn't know and/or appreciate a decent quality recording if one came up and smacked them in the head. Even DVD Audio , HDCD or SA-CD couldn't salvage an N'Sync or Britney Spears recording. These are often the same ones who think that crappy-ass 128kbit MP3 radio rip is "CD-quality" when in reality, the only thing that's truly "CD-quality" is the CD itself? It's actually the Mozart and Bach fans who tend to be the discerning listeners that can appreciate the good-quality recording that comes with formats like HDCD, DVD Audio and SA-CD because they have real hardwarer (like Bang & Olufson systems, Mirantz CD players and JBL speakers) to listen to it on, not some cheap-as computer speakers. But it's all a matter of perspective, I guess.
----------
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
You have to look at what she says in context with what the RIAA does. She says she wants to improve access to smaller artists. The RIAA has worked hard to make sure this never happens. But, let me be clear: they're all for access to smaller artists as long as they continue to be able to manufacture "#1" artists at will. They want to keep the cake they have while eating it.
She also says that the people writing such things as Gnutella don't understand that they have the choice to make money or not on software, but music is just "stolen" (infringed to the rest of us). Of course this ignores the decades of warez precident and the BCA's role. This is a totally hollow argument. We write software. We sell it. We get paid. Some poeple will never be willing to pay. We know. None of that means a damn when Microsoft starts alienating their own customers with tactics like the licensing of XP. Even good, faithful customers look for an out in another product. The RIAA has the same problem.
She comments that she's excited about the possibilities of P2P. Heh, even in the client-server model of digital music, the RIAA freaked out when artists started putting their own music up for download (members did, that is).
Bottom line: read my lips, music sharing will happen. Movie sharing will happen. People will continue to share what they believe (rightly or wrongly) to be theirs. What the RIAA should be doing is coming up with a better way to take advantage of that momentum. Create a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. The corollary to that is that if you just stand around yelling at the manufacturers of poor mousetraps, you eventually get ignored.
There are many artists who get burried because they refuse to make music as specified by record company marketoids. Look what happened to Joan Osborne for example...
...richie - It is a good day to code.
either way, it sure as hell wasnt the RIAA, which was, of course, the main point/factoid of my post.
*shrug*
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
So in other words, record companies never have any intention of letting artists profit from record sales.
-- "" - Harpo Marx
Technically, copying an artist's song w/o paying for it isn't stealing. It's infringment.
It's no more theft than if I were to take a few pictures of you having sex, sell it on the web, and ship them to you and your parents.
It might be wrong or criminal, but it's hardly theft. It's just called that to get the point of it being wrong across.
Now, RIAA might be disgusting slime--but they still are the ones who have the disgusting job of making sure the artist (and all the other creative people who help make an album!) get compensated for their effort.
I agree that it's pointless to attack the RIAA. The thing is, though, if the RIAA is right, they're doomed. Artists are going to have to find another way to do this. P2P file sharing and copyright are mutually exclusive now. You simply cannot have both.
It's like trying to make the top bun of a hamburger illegal. Who's going to listen? No one. You can't make the top bun illegal unless you criminalize bread. You can't stop the two-bun eaters if bread is available at all. It's hopeless. You can't stop sharing music without stopping data sharing in general. If sharing data is possible at all, people will share music. In the past, they only had to go after the BIG infringers. Now everybody is a big infringer.
It's hopeless. As an artist, I'd start thinking about how you'll get your name out there post-RIAA, because they are not going to be able to hold off P2P file sharing.
They're in their own bind, too... if they're right, they're screwed no matter what they do. If they'r wrong, they're wasting loads and loads of money and getting beaten up in the press over nothing.
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
Wesley Willis is independent, too. Rock on Chicago!
Rock over London, Rock on Chicago, Mitchibitchi: the word is getting around
I don't think the point the guy was trying to make was that bands should be encouraging piracy (huh, is it piracy if the copyright holder wants you to do it?). I think he was saying that bands ought to use the power of free distribution to attract audiences, and not to be concerned with potential lost sales. Odds are, the new fans will make up for the slightly lower average per-fan expenditure.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
He might even get to tattoo her posterior, in the best Microsoft tradition. It'd be enough to keep her a banana buddy for life - even though she's publicly stated that she'd like to lie down with money, because she probably meant female money.
.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing