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Recording Artists File Brief Against RIAA
Matthew Skala writes: "The Recording Artists' Coalition, which includes such luminaries as Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, and Sheryl Crow, is still annoyed about the "Work for Hire" legislation we heard about in August 2000. They've filed a brief in the Napster cases, urging the court not to accept the RIAA's copyright registration documents as proof of ownership, because accepting the documents would allow the music cartel to sneakily destroy artists' claims to the music they recorded. They don't take a stand on other issues we might be interested in, but it's still worth thinking about. If the artists are against the RIAA, then whom exactly does the RIAA represent? Some quotes and info are on Siliconvalley.com."
Q. Who does the RIAA represent?
A. Themselves
That was a simple one give me another....
Linux is only free if your time is worthless.
I guess that shold answer your question - the RIAA represents the companies, not the artists. The companies should represent the artists, but they're too busy making a fast buck.
Tom.
Oh arse
RIAA holds the trunk and says music is a tricky snake that might get away if it isn't secured properly. Recording companys hold the legs and say music is a sturdy post that supports the US economy. Broadcasters hold the ears and say music is dish they use to aim what they want to play at who they want to hear it. Artists hold the teat and say music is a kind mother that puts food on their tables.
And we the fan get to hold the ass and say the whole thing just plain stinks.
Its interesting, even among the musicians I know, I can't really think of any that have a very high opinion of the RIAA. Thats not to say they like Napster and the other file sharing groups either.
forma3
One day maybe they will get a clue about who really is dangerous to the consumer. The RIAA is nothing short of really needing a good anti-trust whacking.
They are attempting through the Napster case to establish precedent to do just what the performers fear, and that is to have backing to essentially steal all previous copyrighted works.
They also go out of their way to prevent consumer choice, and to prevent fair exercising of rights to make personal copies.
The RIAAs threat covers more consumers than any software company could dream of, yet they remain totally untouched.
(Hell, the Congress is stepping on Baseball threatening their specific anti-trust protection because they want to close down two teams, why can't they redirect that attention to where its needed)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It's really good that they don't have M$'s PR people. Otherwise, we would have all shutdown Napster, and probably have been happy about it. The artists are obviously hearing thier fans (well, maybe not Metallica), and the fans are NOT happy. None of these people are invincible, and hopefully, corporate America will get a smack upside the head. Besides, Kazaa still rocks. ;)
Um, this is my sig.
...and that's it. It doesn't represent artists, or art, or cultural diversity, or musical history. It's there to protect the interests of the recording industry. No insidious evil plot here—that's simply why it was created, and that's what it does.
The emergent behavior of a system, however, can be completely different from the stated purpose. How does a concept like "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", for example, spawn realities like gulags and purges? The same way a concept like intellectual property spawns a group of uncreative lawyers protecting work that they neither create nor understand.
It wasn't that long ago when artists were simply paid by their patrons for works they'd commissioned, and didn't expect to get rich off royalties and licensing fees. It's a relatively new phenomenon, and in the face of technology, it may turn out to be quite short-lived. Just because we've lived with it all our lives doesn't mean it's right, or good, or sustainable.
Mission Statement The Recording Industry Association of America is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry. Our mission is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members' creative and financial vitality. Our members are the record companies that comprise the most vibrant national music industry in the world. RIAA members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States.
In support of our mission, we work to protect intellectual property rights worldwide and the First Amendment rights of artists; conduct consumer, industry and technical research; and monitor and review - - state and federal laws, regulations and policies. The RIAA also certifies Gold, Platinum, Multi-Platinum[tm], and Diamond sales awards, and recently launched Los Premios De Oro y Platino[tm], a new award celebrating Latin music sales.
Taken from here. (About us section)(Oh please don't hit me with the DMCA for using the text on your website! pfft!)
The way I understand this is that they work to help out record companies, NOT the artists. How pathetic.. You guys aren't fighting to protect artists from losses from copyright infringement, you fight to keep money in your pocket!
Can all fish swim?
They never represented the artists..it's the Recording industry they represent.
,the music fan at the other end a cd burner and some place to swipe a card in.MAJOR recording artists are lucky to get a dollar for every record they sell..We were dreaming of selling direct to consumer for a dollar...
They never had the artists interrest in mind.
I said it all along , when the artist will have t he technology to get rid of then they will not cry .
Whe recording his last album a friend of mine
and i were deraming of getting rid of them,by having a server
Bye Bye RIAA...
These companies are meant to represent the artists they sign up. However, they are too busy trying to grab ownership of the work that these artists do, and making money off of these artists, without giving the artists much back.
In the end, the artists should sort themselves out - they signed up for the recording deals. However, how can some singer hope to comprehend a legal contract from one of these companies? Contracts that in effect transfer ownership of the music to the company from the artist.
Musicians need to band together and work to get themselves good contracts. Contracts where they keep the ownership of the music, and the copyright, but license the record company to release their music for $x per album, for a period of y years.
Greater intelligence is needed on the side of the musicians, as in the end they are the loser in all of this RIAA monopoly shenanigens.
All along the RIAA has been able to do what they did against mp3.com, Napster, and others because they claimed those services took money away from those poor, starving artists.
Most of us knew all along that they were really protecting the interests of the companies at the artists' expense; now we have firm confirmation.
Most people are willing to support their favorite artists. They buy concert tickets, help with word-of-mouth, buy and wear t-shirts, etc. It's going to be harder now for the RIAA to claim that the consumers are greedy and just want free stuff without giving the artist due compensation.
Hopefully, the government won't fall for it anymore.
Therefore, the work-for-hire provisions of most recording contracts are void and unenforceable.
So let me get this straight:
The artist pays the RIAA/Label to make the:
Album(cd/tape), the cover art, most if not all of the costs and don't own the "music" on the disk.
The Fans pay the RIAA/Label for the cd/tape, cover art, distribution and middlemen and don't own the "music" on the disk and in some cases are not allowed to excercise their fair use.
(dripping sarcasm)
OH, yeah, right, that sounds very fair.
(/DS off)
Work for Hire At Will Employee Slavery (legitimized, if not legalized)
Unless I am missing something that is what is coming across, or I've XP'd it already.
If it is not on fire, it is a software problem.
... i've seen an interview of the boss of the Ninja Tune Records. ...
It think it's a very smart point of view
He says that records labels will lose the fight against mp3's. They should have to accept to make money only with concerts, merchandising and so on
They represent the people who have been exploiting musicians for close to 100 years. They represent the kind of people who would gladly pay someone 500 bucks for "Louie Louie" and make millions of dollars from it without thinking of sharing it with the songwriter. They represent the kind of people who pay radio stations millions of dollars a year to get certain songs played on the airwaves that are supposedly owned by the public. They represent the kind of people who think that paying new bands a wage that could be easily beaten by working at 7-11 is fair. They represent a way of doing business that makes used car salesmen, spammers and morticians blanch at the shamelessness of the bookkeeping and bookcooking. Hollywood, the publishing industry and the Fortune 500, would never consider for a minute some of the crooked gambits that are considered to be business as usual in the music industry.
They do not represent the artists. They do not represent the songwriters. They do not represent the audience of listeners and the people who buy the music. They do not, in any way shape or form, represent or respect American musical culture. When rock and roll came, they tried to bury it. When indy rock came, they tried to bury it and then tried to buy it off. When rap came, they tried to shut it out, and then they perverted it into violent, racial stereotyping. Now that electronica is here, they're doing their damnest to bury it under tons of catchy tunes that are a cross between dance and bubblegum. When home studios became a possibility, they outlawed the cheaper versions of the DATs to make it more expensive for those who wanted to start one - they even tried to get zoning boards in the L.A areas to shut them down for zoning violations. Now that they've waken up to the potential of computers, they are trying to cripple them with copy protection built in to the hardware that will also probably cripple an independent musician's ability to make copies of his OWN music and distribute them.
In short, they are a band of greedy, monopolistic Luddites who are attempting to strangle a new explosion in musical culture before it goes too far.
I think one of the best expressions of how many musicians feel about the industry is Joni Mitchell's "For Free", where she wistfully listens to a guy playing sax on the corner for nothing and wonders if she'll ever feel as happy and pure about her music again.
The RIAA is starting to resemble that other paragon of virtue - The Business Software Alliance.
Of course, the BSA thinks they have the authority to search private property looking for license violations.
I could never see the RIAA or the MPAA doing that.
Copyright is an abstract concept.
It is not a technology that can be circumvented by a device anymore than you can travel in time by resetting your watch.
The RIAA represents the 'record industry', ie the record companies. The record companies are all, by law, required to look after their share holder's (financial) interests. So far, so good. They are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. This should surprise no one. However, the manner in which they look after those interests may be up for debate - what would happen if they started interpreting their mission with long-term goals in mind? All of their current tactics are short-term, stop-gap measures, designed to maximize profits right now. Viewed in a long-term perspective, those same measures are counter-productive. They will 'lose', eventually. Suing Napster and Napster-like phenomena will only work for a while. It will not stop Gnutella and it's peers (pun intended) and it will not make J. Random Listener stop downloading MP3s.
The RIAA is scared since they see a future where they don't exist. A future where the artists have all gone independent and is selling their music and other value-added products online through a number of portal sites. That business model is still not viable, but it will be because it has to be. The genie can not be put back in the bottle. Retail sales of CDs will go down. The current distribution channels will collapse. But people will still want to buy and listen to music and musicians will still want to perform.
There will be ways. We'll all find a way. But the RIAA will be roadkill.
Money for nothing, pix for free
It looks like what the Coalition are arguing about is not that the Recording Company own the copyright to the recorded music, but that the Artists should retain the right to be recognised as the Author, and owner of the intellectual rights to the work. This simply means they get to choose who to transfer the copyright to, should the Work appear to have much greater value than the Recording Company initially compensated for.
/. would say, Offtopic.
Basically, if "Tuesday Night Music Club" becomes a much bigger selling album due to some massive increase in demand, Sheryl Crow retains the intellectual rights to the songs, meaning she has a position to renegotiate with A&M from. A&M still own the rights to the recording of the Album, but the Artist can re-record the songs for a different company.
The RIAA's position, which the coalition is attempting to undermine, is that artists who signed work-for-hire contracts have no claim to intellectual property.
I know various instances of the work-for-hire contract from the Comics industry and, basically, the Company own every damn thing.
Unfortunately, I can't see how a bunch of artists, famous or not, can, by telling the court how-it-is-for-an-artist is going to overturn those contracts, as, while not necessarily presented in good faith by the Recording Companies, are legally binding and accepted by the Artist. Citing previous legislation which is relevant to a different contract type, is, as
I wish them luck because I want to see some draconian money-grabbing bunch of RIAA protected scumbags get thier comeuppance for bad faith business practice. Alas I think this particular battle tactic is a lost cause.
Chris.
You'd think that Bruce would be happy to have the RIAA claim ownership for some of his most embarressing moments like Born In The USA......
I think they need to take the I in their name and give it a font size about twice the rest of the letters.
I still have one giant conceptual problem with their "work for hire" clause: If making a record is truely a "work for hire" then why does the artist have to pay back all the costs of creating it? It's like I'll hire you to maintain my house, and it'll only cost you $400 a month to do it. And oh yeah, bring all your tools over and when you're done, they're mine.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
(Old) Napster provided the means for a good unknow group to become famous and sucessfull by their own merit, but it doesn't provide ways for those hugely famous musicians (well, their "masters" at least) to make even more money.
That is, essencially, why the RIAA wanted Napster to go down: it doesn't allow them to make exorbitant amounts of money.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
The RIAA represents the record companies. Everybody knows that what singers get compared to the money they earn is peanuts. The record companies keep it all, and they're going to do whatever they can to get more money. You know how car stereo equipment sellers have a bad reputation as being slimy, greedy, hoodwinks? Well take that to the tenth power and you begin to see how the RIAA is.
~ now you know
The bargaining leverage of the RIAA is touted repeatedly in this brief, and not as a good thing. This may or may not be true, depending on the "status" of the artist sitting at the negotiating table. By the same token, most artists dont have the bankroll to do their own marketing/publicity. So they do, in effect, get a VC investor when they sign up with an RIAA member. The typical observer may not see the big difference between this relationship, and someone with a good business plan who needs capital to startup another dotcom. We all know what the typical VC wants for their cut.
What they (the artists) dont yet fully realize, is that digital format, and encryption is going to change things. This is their moment. This is ground zero for digital music, and it might be their last chance to assert their own authority over their own works in the digital realm, which will soon be (perhaps already is) the basis of all other realms. There are very few analog distribution channels left out there with any popularity.
I hope that they (artists) take the time to learn how to use crypto/digital to their own advantage. If they (RAC) wanted to, they could (say) make their own CA and start their own distribution network immedietly. Then the RIAA would simply be another purchaser (redistributor) of the digital form of the works.
I've heard it used a lot of times, of course with varies themes, but this one is actually guite good.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
From interviews I've conducted with more than a few artists, both major label and indy (includes Foetus, Firewater, Techno Animal, and a few others)
They dislike the RIAA. They dislike Napster. Both are seen as detrimental to the artist and the artists ability to survive.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
...and the pursuit to pad their own wallets - not the artists'. My impression is that the RIAA is a fraternity of lawyers who couldn't make it in the real world so they pick on kids who support the popular music industry! They really don't affect anyone with musical taste anyway 'cause when was the last time you saw a lawyer at a Superchunk show???
Sound waves should be free!
2) Set up a company (cheap)
3) Set up a bank account
4) Set up a merchant account
5) Sell music online
6) PC with CD burner and CD label printer
You just need $5000 up front to set this up, maybe you could do it for a few bands. Sell entire albums for $5 (a percentage goes to the merchant bank).
Marketing is the problem. Use Napster and the other music distribution mechanisms to put out low-quality snippets and encourage people to visit your site. If the music is naff, then people will not buy, obviously!
Insert all the standard slashdot oriented comments here:
music should be owned by the artists
if they didn't put out crap we'd buy their CD's
CD's are too expensive
i should be able to make a back up copy of anything i own
I bought a CD and its scratched, so i had to buy it twice
the labels are screwing the artists
I only have one thing new to bring to this: yesterday, on CNN, in between terrorism and more terrorism, on the ticker at the bottom, i saw something that said "RIAA reports loss of $5B last year, says mostly attributed to CD burning piracy". I've been all over the RIAA and CNN's websites and can find nothing about it. If you find something, please post below.
And now for some quasi-related links!
Courtney Love speaks out against major labels at
The RIAA discusses cost of a CD at
~z
On a side note, its really hard to find news about anything "else" these days. I swear to god, with the 24 hour afghan channels, i have no idea what else is going down in my own country. And its only 5% news. Like jon stewart said, its like they report everything they know, and then they speculate to fill the time, like "what if they had a nuclear weapon, the size of a.... um... doughnut. yeah. and it was shaped like a doughnut... lets talk to the experts... get me dunkin doughnuts!"
sig?
Funny because the public or even in the labels of records and CDs, they claim ownership of the works. However, artists cliam that they are not employees per se because they are not compensated accordingly such as overtime, vacations, health insurance, etc. The sales of their works are tallied and until such time that their sales are over the expenses incurred in producing and selling the music, they are never compensated.
Return the bells of Balangiga.
The Recording industry is just being a little slow here, a little stupid. They'll see eventually that they must learn to make their money in ways other than selling records, for example: corporate sponsership of concerts, selling advertising on label-owned artist web sites, stuff like that.
I have this idea: Many, if not most artists, I think I can assume, don't produce more than one albumn or so per year. Maybe the artist's record label could set up a "club" for each artist under their wing. Maybe the club costs you, the consumer, $15-$20 per year to join.
You would enjoy benefits such as:
-one free copy of any albumns produced, and discounts on additional copies (hey, you could steal it anyway, but this way the record company can make people feel like they are getting something cool, and you already paid your 15 bucks).
-the ability to get the albumn before it hits the stores (which really doesn't cost them anything extra, but again, people would feel like they were special)
-access to a hoopty-doo "members only" web site, with exclusive content, maybe interviews, interactive chats, special downloads of music and pics, that sort of crap
-discounts on, or at the very least, advance sales of, concert tickets (which would encourage club members to buy tickets, making everybody involved MORE money)
-exclusive merchandise (which again, encourages club members who may not have bought that shirt to do so if they feel like they are getting something special)
Many other industries have had to change their methods of making profits in our new economy, and the recording industry can do the same, they just need to get their heads out or their collective butts, stop whining, realize that suing people ain't a good way to make a living, and get on with the business of business, which is making lots of money by making consumers think they need some more crap.
The Grateful Dead made lots of their money not thru record sales, but thru merchandising and concerts, why can't that work for others too?
Dave Cooley
"Computers have allowed us to make more mistakes faster than any invention in the history of mankind, with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila."
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
then what does that do to the napster case? If the RIAA can not claim to own the copyrights on the music then how can they be filing suit on Copyright infringment? I hope that this gets the case thrown out onthe bases of non-ownership(or what ever the legal term in :-) )
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Yes, that looks great, at first, you know that's how a majority of artist begin, but I'm afraid it's too late. We, techno people, agree on that point, but for a majority of customers, to use this kind of tools means illegal market. They don't know that a lot of unknown artists are actually using it, and in fact they don't care at all.
What the people want is to have the CD of the last song they heard on the radio, and to arrive to famous radios, the artists have to try to work with some marketing companies.
Start your own music company without joining the RIAA and run it the way you like.
'nough said, RIAA goes away as more people do the same.
Can you please stop posting crap about Naptster, the RIAA,nobody gives a crap about them anymore.
More like has-beens.
Anyhow, copyright law is perplexing. It seems like the buyers, the artists, and the record companies all have opposing positions. In the end it is music buyers who get screwed. Without buyers copyright means nothing.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
The RIAA represents the interests that control PROMOTION AND DISTRIBUTION of music, and NOT the PRODUCTION OR AUTHORING of music. They don't care about music or artists that have not been proven as "mass marketable" because the payoff does not attract lawyers and middlemen.
The RIAA exists to reserve the SCARCITY of good music (keeping music OUT of the hands of consumers) until pent-up demand can generate windfall revenues. Musicians who slowly build up a following simply do not sign bad contracts that give all the windfall to the industry people. The RIAA exists to control the money of one-hit-wonders and fad music that rises quickly out of obscurity into the obsessions of conformity-minded 12-13 year olds.
If you think about Napster vs. RIAA in those terms, you see that the timeless music most heavily traded on Napster threatens the middlemen more than the artists. What would happen to Britney Spears and Puff-Daddy if junior-high aged kids started to think that their parents' old record collection was cooler than the crap being hyped on MTV and department store PA systems?
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
They don't take a stand on other issues we might be interested in, but it's still worth thinking about.
I consider anybody being screwed by the company they work for to be something I'm interested in. Just because they aren't demanding that napster returns doesn't mean anything, and I consider all the people bitching about the way things are done there (artists, that is) to be evidence that the cartel which is the RIAA doesn't work for the good of the artists (the only people in the whold forsaken industry who deserve to be paid for their work).
If the artists are against the RIAA, then whom exactly does the RIAA represent?
Why, the bastards who run the record comanies. I thought everybody knew by now that the record industry is structured to leech as much money from the artists as possible. Why else would so many busty blondes with no discernable talent have recording contracts?
Basically, the industry is owned by people who only understand profit, not beauty, or art, or the power of music.
It's been a long time.
Then they try to get court documents saying that the music is "work for hire", and as a result they own the work forever, rather than having the copyright assigned to them for a period of time. As work for hire, they don't have to give the artists back the masters in 35 years as they do now.
It's my understanding this is the reason that 4 of the Big Five settled with MP3.Com is so that they wouldn't have to prove they owned the music, (they tried the same thing in that case, to say the music was "work for hire"). By settling after they had a court decision they avoided the issue. Most artists, who the labels say were hurt in the MP3 case, have never seen a cent from those settlements.
This could facilitate a way for the labels to save face, settle with Napster and license the music to Napster. Otherwise we will probably be hearing about the Napster case in 2035 as it is finally decided.
- Recording label scout finds a band he likes
- Scout promotes his band to execs
- Execs decide they like the band and sign them to a contract
- Label offers to loan the band money to record album
- Band records album, usually taking quite some time, because they are new to the recording industry and they may not initially have 45-60 minutes of material
- Band returns to label with finished album
- Band finds that neither scout nor exec nor anyone they've ever seen before still works at label (the turnover in this industry surpasses even the tech sector for some reason)
- No new exec is interested in publishing the band's album
- Band tries to take album to another label, perhaps where the original scout or exec now works, but is unable to because they've signed a contract
- Band still owes recording loan to label
- Band languishes in debt because they cannot do anything with their created music nor start over without breach of contract
- Label starts sending bill collectors for their loan payments
Maybe I should ask you to tell me how it could be possible for the label to fail to make money.Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
I don't know if anyone here is familiar with the band Marillion, but they were able to cut out the record companies and self-finance their latest album with pre-order sales via their web site - proof if anyone needed it that the RIAA et. al. are not stricty necessary to artists' success. Here's the press release.
While I agree that the RIAA needs to see some anti-trust scrutiny, Major League Baseball is acting just as monopolistic as MS or the RIAA. Your statement above shows that you may not have been following the baseball contraction issue as closely as I have.
The baseball situation is that they want to close down the two teams that are making the least money. Reason? The cities won't submit to paying for new baseball parks for the team to play in. Never mind that a spiffy new ball park like Enron in Houston, or PacBell in San Francisco cost between $500 million and $1 billion to build.
If the taxpayers resist paying for it, the team threatens to move. If they move (or in this case, just disappear) the league always says "you'll have first pick in future expansion opportunities", but any time you bring in expansion baseball, the league demands an "Expansion fee" from the city.
The dillemma these people have is that they can either be extorted for $500 million for a stadium now and keep the team, or get a new team in 10 years when the economy is better, still have to build a stadium for whatever a stadium costs in 2011, and also pay an "expansion fee".
In any other business, this is a shakedown. But it's the worst kind of shakedown, it's a shakedown for TAX money.
Who did what now?
the RIAA represents the companies, not the artists
So, they are representing themselves (thru/with lawyers, no doubt).
The addage, any lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client.
There are little snippets that catch my attention:
Under existing law, a ``work for hire'' is considered the property of the employer - the record company - and not the artist, preventing artists from reclaiming their copyrights 35 years after recordings are made.
And the incentive to create comes from where?
Pardon me if I am being dense, but, why does it seem that artist are feeding the monster that they know is going to devour them?
Or is it this contention a hopes of sticking in the craw of the beast?
It's irrelevant because there can be no doubt that the record companies own or control the copyrights at issue here.
Uh, huh..."Feed me Semour, Feed me NOW!"...is all I keep hearing.
If it is not on fire, it is a software problem.
...because accepting the documents would allow the music cartel to sneakily destroy artists' claims to the music they recorded.
It's about time that the labels are described as what they should be. A cartel; a small number of corporate entities acting together to effect a monopoly. And it's illegal in the U.S. (though not in other countries).
I wonder if antitrust legislation will ever be attempted against the labels.
... the RIAA represents the companies, not the artists. The companies should represent the artists, but they're too busy making a fast buck.
No, the RIAA SHOULD NOT represent the artists. It is an organization of, by, and for the labels.
There IS an organization that SHOULD be representing the artists.
It's their UNION.
To which they've been paying dues since they first got on stage.
The Musician's union has accused of been nothing but a scam for quite some time.
Now's the artists' chance to do something about it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The R.I.A.A was established to protect artists from other artist's. It was a sorta of safety net to protect the lyrics from being used by other artists in derivative works. The R.I.A.A was also a database of song lyrics, that could easily determine if your song was infringing on 'prior art'. It was a service for artists by artists, at least originally. The R.I.A.A sold itself to small upstart music labels, typically the really cool small labels that had limited funds to pay for lawyers. It was good for everyone since infringement issues were not the norm back then. You must realize that the big issue was artists taking the lyrics and making derivative works (aka covers songs, etc...)
Enter onto the scean digital samplers. Once Roland, EMU, Ensoniq, and other started selling good digital samplers for a reasonable price... A whole slew of copyright protection changed...as taking samples (aka perfect clones) of the actual original work was made supper easy. Its true that the artists could simply use the traditional analog technology to do the same, but with the emergence of electronic genre (aka disco, new wave, techno, industrial) the people doing the recordings were exposed to a new art... the manipulation of samples. Other factors are at play here too, but it was in this general time span things were starting to change (80's & 90's)
This new era brought with it an increase of non-lyric infringements, and the R.I.A.A database was not so effective. By this time the R.I.A.A had become a sort of insurance company, who would not only serve as a watch dog group for song writers, but as an entity who purpose was to protect the investments of the record labels, who were acting as middle men for the artists.
It is true that the record labels would typically purchase the rights to the songs from the artists in deals that were typically penned by the recording companies. In this way the R.I.A.A shifted from being an organization that protected the artist, to an organization that protected the rights of the record companies (who assumed the rights of the artists).
This is what got us in our present condition. The record companies think they are the artists... and in fact when a record company exec wants a new hit single... it is not an issue of recruiting a rising star, its about creating the next new hit.... by means of record-for-hire.... hence bands like Nsync, and the likes (no offence Nsync).
You see... the record companies don't have the time to wait for real artists to come up with a hit single... the creative process simple doesn't fit into the cash-revenue cycle. This cycle is out-pacing the creative juices of real artists...
So it is true that the Recording companies are paying for the production of new songs, paying for the lyrics used in those songs, and in general own the entire creative process in many situations, except those coming from the smaller recording companies, who typically represent the real artists.... However... this doesn't stop the recording companies from looking at them all the same. If they can own the entire recording process of their artist, why now have the same ownership rights of the art they acquire via the smaller record companies.
The issues can be quite sticky sometimes. The most common thing I see is a lack of understanding on how far reaching the recording company contracts really are. These things are in favor of the record company, and in turn the R.I.A.A must protect the record companies if they are going to feed the wallets of their highly paid lawyers.
The solution you ask... the best idea would be for the artists to create a coalition that they can directly interface with, and use to protect their lyrics, and their recordings directly. They also need a direct distribution system that pays them, and not the record companies. Online distribution would be good, but what ever that system might be would have to make use of encryption to protect the rights on the artists, and the artist would hold the encryption keys used to decipher the music, and your purchase of the medium would involve an exchange of keys. Obviously this is way too much work for an artist, who cannot be expected to be a crypto expert. Again, recording companies would step in and manage this for the artist... however.. They would probably want the right to the music. But what the artist don't seem to understand is they can still maintain the copy rights on the music while deferring the distribution rights to a 3rd party. It comes clear when you differentiate distribution rights from copyrights..... For example... I give you the right to be the only company to sell my song, but I still own my songs... you just have my permission to duplicate and distribute my works... and only on a limited basis at that.
From the persepective of mp3/ogg trading geeks... its seem to skip our the minds that the R.I.A.A once stood for something good. Despite the open nature of our software community (aka BSD license, and the GNU) the artist are in it for the plesure of writing songs first, and making money second. THe R.I.A.A and the FSF has something in common here.... they protect the rights, and recognition of the original artists. If you steal the lyrics of my songs, and don't at least give me blulb somewhere in the distro... I would sue you.... The FSF does the exact same.... Think about it.
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
They don't take a stand on other issues we might be interested in,
AND??? My God, they're standing up to the RIAA to try and preserve their rights to their livelihood and their art, what more do you want from them?
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
I've been through the Work for Hire copyright problem. It's how Marvel Comics and DC have stolen the rights to every comics character since Superman. The "rich" have recently changed copyright law so it does not revert to the artist after 25 years. Seemingly this law was changed by the "rich" to solidify the rights to such famous brand names as... Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, etc.
This situation has destroyed the comics industry (Marvel is bankrupt, comics sell at a loss) and has devastated artists who gave there all for an industry that didn't care a wit for the medium or the art.
The music industry is the same. Suits who are so bloated and sickening... I've seen how the music industry in Canada has grown into a massive corporate mess (thanks Moses! What a guy). A legal mess that is.
Can anyone explain to me how a court of law can find a giant monopolistic music/entertainment/whatever it's bought recently company can be granted the rights to music over the artist who wrote it?
Someone...
Anyone...
Are the AFM really doing nothing about Work For Hire?
Tom.
Oh arse
My angle is this: pro sports teams are a business, no more and no less. If they can't run at a (sufficient) profit, that's not the public's problem. Anyway, how is contracting 2 teams any different from Best Buy closing 2 unprofitable stores? It's not like baseball will disappear. Hey, the St. Paul Saints (AAA ball) games are way more fun than MLB games.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
It's called the "Recording Industry Assocication of America" for a reason.
They represent the record companies, and record companies alone. If they wanted to represent artists and record companies they would have called it the Music Industry Association of America. But the only people they care about are the guys who own the CD fab plants and the copyright on the recordings. All that stuff about "protecting artist's rights" is just FUD.
If that isn't painfully obvious to you by now, you need to go back and read some more slashdot posts on the subject.
It is in the interest of all of us creative types to have it reinforced that the US Constitution requires that copyright go to authors and not to some faceless corporate behemoth.
fwiw
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
is there any anti-riaa music floating around? like a 2 live crew song about hilary rosen.
RIAA = Recording Industry Association of America
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
...profit-hungry recording companies. The artists are, for the most part, getting ripped off by RIAA companies, but some of what they do doesn't sound all that out of the ordinary to me.
First, the bad: RIAA companies that contract musicians under the "works for hire" type contracts really try hard to screw musicians out of ownership of their songs. Heck, even HBO claimed that they owned Tenacious D's songs that were made for the one and only season of their cable television show. To me, that sounds like the argument many academic institutions have used to claim patents/credit for innovations: "If you hadn't been using our resources, you wouldn't have come up with the result."
Now, the "not out of the ordinary". I remember reading Courtney Love's rather well-written tirade about the behavior of RIAA companies and they way they (the companies) spend money in advance on recording, promotion, touring, etc and expect to be paid back. I don't really see that as a problem. The recording company is, in effect, an investor in an artist. The company will spend the money on all the aforementioned things in an effort to sell a product and make a profit. Sure, I wish people weren't greedy and they didn't expect to make so much of a profit, but humans will be humans. Love explains that after all the bills are paid back, many artists don't make much money. Well, Courtney, most working people in the world don't have much money left after the bills are all paid, this applies perhaps even more so to those in the arts. Contracted musicians aren't a special social class who deserve to earn a 6-figure-plus salary. I'd be willing to bet that the figures are more or less proportionate. Artists who sell a lot earn a lot. Artists who sell relatively little get paid relatively little.
Just as an example, one of my best friends was actually a performing musician in Nashville for a while. He wrote a song that was recorded on an album by a contracted, professional pop/rock group. The album, consequently, went platinum. Just royalties on that song along made my friend just over $50k that year. I would hope the recording artists receive much more compensation than that, given live performances, t-shirt sales, etc.
So, yeah, I've heard it all before and I agree with most of it. The RIAA is evil, tramples on personal property rights, is clueless when it comes to protecting intellectual property, bought lawmakers, persecuted the Christians, sold crack to kids, broke my lawnmower, yada, yada , yada. They are a business and like any other business, they are struggling to protect their paradigm. Some of the ways they do it are just normal for business. Too many, though, are just brutal.
My sigs always suck.
There was a back-referenced /. article about RIAA reversing it's desire for "Work for hire" as part of some legislation. At the time there was speculation that it was due to pressure from artists, and fear of looking like a bunch of thieving bandits.
But we can concoct a more sinister reason, thanks to Sonny Bono.
If a work is copyrighted as "Work for hire", it get 95 years of protection. OTOH, if it's copyrighted under the artist's name(s) and rights assigned to the recording label, it gets life-of-the-artist plus 75 years protection. Most pop artists that generate the CD churn appear to have >20 years of lifetime left, if they can control their overstimulation habits. So for those folks, it's a better deal for the label to leave the copyright in the artist's name.
Somehow I doubt it would be worth the effort to have age-based policies on "work for hire", because it would probably raise more questions and lawsuits than it would gain in back-end revenue. Besides, the target audience may well be age-clustered with the artist, so the back-end revenue loss would be minimal.
Or maybe they're hoping that in about 15 years Disney's next piece of legislation will extend copyright "until the Sun goes out", arguing that that is limit enough to meet constitutional tests.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
That's like saying "We have this new single made by the Dixie Chicks, country music lovers will eat it up." will always be true. Everyone knows what makes successful or great music isn't the genre, artist or the label. Artists will be the first ones to say success is skill, dedication and a lot of luck. RIAA's argument paints a picture they are the ones who play match the card. To RIAA, the artist is just a barrier. The only thing they see of value is "the recording".
The question I have is, "How in the world, does the legal system not see the flaw in the argument?" The assumption is obviously flawed and yet the legal system sided with RIAA. Perhaps I am too hopeful the judicial system still has a few judges who believe in ethics and morality. Then again, RIAA has a lot of money to push their interests before consumers and artists. Too bad none of their legal posturing will change the fact a new breed of artists are growing up with digital technology and know how to use it for their own benefit. More and more artists will choose to use digital equipment at home to record, mix and master their albums. As more people grow up with technology, it becomes easier to distribute artwork and allows artists a greater degree of freedom. The one thing RIAA has no control over, "the creative process" is what scares them the most.
And they exist for most artists. It is NOT a money-making scheme from the record company. These are usually independantly run and "officially sanctioned"... usually by friends or family of the band. Granted, in most you don't get a free copy of the recent release, but you do get extra stuff.
If you wanna make money on this scheme, then you'd have to rip off people, like Dave Matthews Band does. Their fan club is $50 per year.
Advanced access to tickets is a staple of fan clubs and usually the major reason people join.
Hey, my contract as a programmer at work means that my employer owns the stuff I program. This is entirely reasonable. So why is it that music artists, employed by their employer (RIAA member) get so upset at losing the ownership of the work they do?
They get paid more than adequate wages for what they do (if they are any good). Many of them do not write the words or the music, they just look nice and can vaguely sing. These people are not $1m/year musicians, and they earn under $100k. S-Club 7 (annoying teeny pop band in the UK) are well known, but only get this sort of wage, plus sponsorship (BT mainly at the moment). Plus they don't have to work in an office and their deadlines are measured to the nearest year, not the nearest week or day.
Here's what renowned cryptography guru Bruce Schneier has to say about the DMCA (emphasis mine):
---
[...] Dmitry Sklyarov (age 27) landed in jail because the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes publishing critical research on this technology a more serious offense than publishing nuclear weapon designs. Just how did the United States of America end up with a law protecting the entertainment industry at the expense of freedom of speech? And how did the entertainment industry end up with stronger laws protecting their content than the information on constructing nuclear weapons?
[...]
Welcome to 21st century America, where the profits of the major record labels, movie houses, and publishing companies are more important than First Amendment rights or nuclear weapons information. (The more you look at the problem, the weirder it becomes. "The New York Times" has the legal right to publish secret government documents, unless they are protected by a digital copy-protection scheme, in which case publishing them would lead to an FBI raid.)
[...]
The entertainment industry is behaving the same way. The DMCA is unconstitutional, but they don't care. Until it's ruled unconstitutional, they've won. The charges against Sklyarov won't stick, but the chilling effect it will have on other researchers will. If they can scare software companies, ISPs, programmers, and T-shirt manufacturers (Hollywood has sued CopyLeft for publishing the DeCSS code on a T-shirt) into submission, they've won for another day. The entertainment industry is fighting a holding action, and fear, uncertainty, and doubt are their weapons. We need to win this, and we need to win it quickly. Please support those who are fighting these cases in the courts: the EFF and others. Every day we don't win is a loss.
---
Read the full text here.
Raymond
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
It's irrelevant because there can be no doubt that the record companies own or control the copyrights at issue here. This is something that artists don't contend.
Excuse me? Was that your ass that was talking here? I think your business practices should be questioned here. I forsee United States v. RIAA in the near future.
We didn't, but the RIAA has been claiming that the reason they're against Napster et al is due to the harm done to the artists. Possibly they're thinking that the average person in the street would have more sympathy for the artists than the price fixing consortium.
As a recording artist, I do not receive a fee for making an album. I may receive an advance to cover the costs of the recording process, which I am responsible for paying back in full. The costs are deducted from or recouped from my share of the royalties. I do not receive a dime from the sale of my albums until I have paid for all costs incurred during the production. I pay for the record - not the label.
-- Sheryl Crow
I like that woman...
http://kered.org
What happens in the music industry is that the reocrding company (Party A) "lends" money to the artist to make a recording. This money must be paid back by the artist before they get anything.
It's most definitely NOT the true definition of "work for hire"
"Work Made For Hire" is a specific legal term, with a specific definition, specified in Section 101 of the Copyright Law. A good resource is gigalaw.com.
In brief, "Work Made For Hire" includes: "work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a sound recording,..." (From the site).
For the artists, their work is a "Work for Hire" because they signed a contract agreeing so, and because the law says it is.
Should this be the case? No, but the artists knew what they were getting in to (or should have) and shouldn't have agreed to it.
Well, please tell your musician friends from this extremely heavy consumer of recorded music (I have been known to buy over 100 CDs a year) that they should *love* Napster and they should figure out ways to sell mp3s or oggs or some other fairly public/standard format files of their music online. Please suggest they investigate the approaches used by Mordam record distributors who sell individual digitized tracks from numerous artists for 50 to 80 cents on average.
Please also be sure to mention that I love to get my hot little hands on actual CDs and LPs and that I am a *lot* more likely to buy one (or the whole discography in some cases) when having a good idea what it sounds like. Sure, I've downloaded some stuff from Napster that I'm not likely to buy the album of, but it's stuff I wouldn't have been able to hear on the radio either (even if I did listen to the radio) and couldn't possibly have known much about without a prehear.
As an example, Sleater-Kinney is a band people I know have said they liked. And I'm familiar with the genre, but hadn't heard any specific S-K songs, after a couple of Napster downloads I proceeded to buy every CD of theirs I could find within a very short period of time. Another good example would be Negativland, while I owned a couple of their albums from back in the early 90's, once I found their U2 sendups on their web site for free, that renewed my interest and I picked up at least six or seven of their newer CDs.
I do not have a signature
> If you're willing to pay more, you increase the
> overall number of artists, but you typically also
> lower the standard of 'exceptional talent.'
You remind me of the musical guest on Conan O'Brien two nights ago. Dilated Peoples. I truly believed they were a "joke band", and that Conan was going to come out afterwards and say, "Wow, That Sucked!" It turns out that they are this real rap group. If their album sounded like their performance, they'd never sell a copy. Summary: Terrible live performance + Terrible Lyrics + A Gig on a Nationally Broadcast Show = Proof that 'exceptional talent' in field has lowered.
Grumble, Grumble
The brief explains why the artists don't think it qualifies as a work for hire. Basically, it's because they don't receive any of the normal compensation one would get for a work for hire; they're not paid, they don't receive benefits, they just get a loan. They pay the expense of recording the album; they decide what goes into it. And they provide the legal references to back up their viewpoint. A contract that is direct contradiction to the law isn't necessarily valid, even if it's signed.
Their goal is to make sure that recordings are not considered works for hire. Currently the law is on their side. As a work for hire, if they terminate their contracts with the label they don't get to recover their copyright. This isn't about nullifying the contract; it's about what happens when the contract is terminated.
People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
they dont like the RIAA because they think everything should be shared and free... oh wait wrong group...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Well, Clearly the RIAA does not represent artists; one need only examine the title for which the acronym stands to know that.
The major 'non-profits' that represent the artist interests would be the PRO's such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, etc. These are the groups that sell blanket liscenses for broadcasting to the major networks, cable, radio, as well as bars, restaurants, and stores. Unfortunately for the artists, the PRO's are run primarily by boards whose members have significant stakes elsewhere in the recording industry... Hence the need for groups like the RAC.
Torn... between hate... for three lame "artists"... and evil megacorp coalition... uggh... which to hate... which to root for...
BRAIN... EXPLODING...
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
...of getting exposure is net radio. With Napster, et.al, you still have to choose what you download. With a net radio station, you can choose the genre, so that you can be fairly assured that you will like what comes down the pipe, but you won't be picking the actual artists. Because of that, it's very likely that you will hear something that you wouldn't have thought about downloading from Napster or Gnutella or what-have-you.
I now own a couple of CDs by the Brand New Heavies and Jon Scofield, two discs that I would never have thought of owning were it not for the streaming net radio station playing over my machine.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Actually, the story of what happened here is worse than you think. What happened is that, after he gained popularity, he decided to leave the recording contract he was in because it was draconian. However, the label pursued (and won) the rights to the stage name "Prince", so he couldn't record under that name for anyone else. Hence, he changed his name to a symbol (to get around legal issues as much as any other reason), wrote the word "slave" on his forehead and finished out his contract. When it was done he started his own label and became The Artist Formerly Known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.
The worst part about this is that when he said he wanted out of his contract, his label actually decided that the best course of action was to take away his right to his own stage name, which I found to serve no purpose except spite. I must admit that after hearing this I have a lot more respect for him than when I thought he did it just to be eccentric (which I found out was just the way the recording industry spun it to keep them from looking bad).
Virg
Please keep in mind that a remarkably puny fraction of working artists make anything more than a living wage. The superstars get all the press, but there is a large army of one-hit wonders, session pros and weekend warriors out there; make no mention of all the adolescent strivers.
illegitimii non ingravare
> Can anyone explain to me how a court of law can find a giant
> monopolistic music/entertainment/whatever it's bought recently company
> can be granted the rights to music over the artist who wrote it?
If the court is presented with a document stating that the artist signs over rights to the work created, the court has no choice. Most, if not all, recording contracts have a clause like this. This is not to say that it's fair, but the court has to assume that the contract was willingly entered by both parties (in the absence of proof of coercion). Since the artist signs (and then does not successfully press coercion charges), the law is clear.
The question that you must ask now is why so many artists sign contracts that give rights to their works to these companies. There are many other posts that address this issue, and I lack the time to approach this now, but the simple answer to your question is that the court finds for the company because the artist gave the rights to the company.
Virg
So, what will come of all of this? I think that some of these major artist who, in spite of the RIAA, have been able to get rich off of their talents will form a new record company. This company must follow the credo: "Don't screw the artist; don't screw the customer"
The contracts for the artist would specifically state that the artist recordings are NOT "work for hire", the contract would specifically state that the publishing rights for the music remain with the artist (as Disipline Mobile Group records already does), and the contract would give the artist $1 to $2 per CD. And finally, they would give away at least one song of every album as an MP3 on the record company's web site
On the customer side it's even easier. Set a policy that the suggested retail price of every CD is $10.
Can such a company exist and make money? Absolutly! The only real problem is distribution. The major labels have every square foot of bin space at Tower, Sam Goody etc. reserved and accounted for. It's next to impossible for a new record company to get bin space if they don't crack and join up with the RIAA. So what's the solution?
Remember, the internet changes everything. This is one of the "new economy" concepts that actually works. For the first couple of years the CD will be sold only via the record company's web site as well as other none brick & morter sites like Amazon. If the RIAA is blocking the distribution of ethically produced reasonably priced CDs then use the internet to do an end run around them. The customers are already wired. Look at the number of Napster users, Bear Share users and so on. These are your customers and by definition they already have 'net access. Instead of fearing the web as a tool of "pirates" USE THE WEB to avoid the RIAA cartel completly.
This is a plan that can seriously work. Just as a packet on the internet sees a broken router as damage and routes around it we need to form ethical record companies that see the RIAA as damage so we can route around that mess.
Somebody needs to use this situation as an opportunity to make a LOT of money in a completly ethical manner. The artist will support them, the consumers will support them, the 'net community will support them. All we need is the investment cash and a leader and the recording industry will change forever.
...a brief with the courts, the artists were subsequently sued for copyright infringment. A record industry spokesman was quoted as saying: "They have no right to sing these songs. We own them, and we will now charge artists for each time they sing songs."
Riiiiiiiiiiiight.
DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately, this has to be said, as some people will actually believe the above quote is real instead of a cynical view of things.
...the city will not wind up owning an empty, useless building when Best Buy decides to move to St.Louis or Nashville. Somebody will, but the important difference is that the owner won't be the city, which is, of course, a government entity, and hence, directly financed by taxpayers.
Tax Increment Financing is kind of a different issue, really.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
...then whom exactly does the RIAA represent?
Who ever claimed they represented the artists? Only an idiot would think that. Their name says exactly who they represent.
The Milli Vanilli debacle was only embarassing to the recording industry because they got caught. The proliferation of dancing boy bands and jiggling girl bands is just the continuation of a cookie-cutter process that's become the RIAA's wet dream. Now that technology can assure that you don't actually have to hire musicians to perform music, they've gone overboard. And they're about to be bowled over by the backlash. Every musical movement engenders a backlash. I remember the "disco sucks" revolt. Hundreds of teenagers at my school smashing records in the playground. Literally thousands of records were smashed, angrily. It was years before disco artists resurfaced. The backlash against Britney and 'N'Sync is going to make that look tame. Those people won't be able to go out in public until they're fifty . . .
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
The (RIAA) was surprised by the filing. ``Their decision to file is as baffling as it is irrelevant,'' said Jano Cabrera, a spokesman for the RIAA.
``It's baffling because artists have as much at stake in protecting copyrights online as do record companies,'' he said.
Many artists are now aware, or are quickly becoming aware, that free exposure of their music to fans on the internet translates into increased record sales, and especially increased concert attendance. It's the record companies that have a strong stake in monopolizing the on-line market for downloadable music, because the internet renders their multi-billion dollar industry obsolete.
It would be nice to see some of the file sharing services actively promoting the undeniably legitimate aspects of file sharing.
By providing exposure to independant artists and software developers who specifically want their work distributed freely in this way, the file sharing services could establish that file sharing has an inherent legitimate purpose, while also providing a medium through which independant artists could publish.
Currently, independant music is lacking in these systems because the users don't know to search for it. If I were to share music which I had created, no one would know to search for it, and therefore no one would download it from me.
If these services actively promoted artists and developers, they could protect themselves legally while possibly chipping away at the record companies' monopoly on music by providing a real publishing alternative.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
Check this out:
$6.2B/488.7M = $12.69/Unit (last year)
$5.9B/442.7M = $13.33/Unit (this year)
They are charging more per unit, and selling less. Go figure.
Remember when the RIAA got the amendment passed the first time, turning all recordings into works for hire? At the time, they said several times that they were just trying to clarify current law. And, of course, we all thought, "who are you trying to fool?". And Sheryl Crow thought that, and a ton of other artists thought that, and Congress thought that, and repealed the stupid thing (if you've forgotten any of this, it's nicely summarized in part 1, interest of amicus curiae).
But now we see that the RIAA was serious-- they are going to press for this being interpreted as the way the law works currently. However, it seems that their own greedy contracts may have come back to bite them in the ass. As it says in the brief, "in order to qualify as a work for hire... a work created by an independent contractor must... have been created at the commissioning party's 'instance and expense'" (loosely quoted, read it yourself if you want more context). And this is where it gets interesting-- the label doesn't pay for the album to get made. They advance money to the artist, who has to pay it all back. So it's made at the artist's expense. And if the artist's footing the bill, it's not a work for hire under current law, or any common sense definition.
So why is the RIAA trying this again? They probably thought they could slip it through in the morass of legal proceedings, no one would notice, then they could point at it in future cases. Unless they have some ruling or law up their sleeve that the Coalition didn't know about, I'm guessing the judge will ask them to amend the submissions. But IANAL; maybe their brief is a lot less convincing than it looks to me.
'NSync represents nothing more than the ability to sing lyrics written by somebody else to a tune composed by somebody else and to look pretty in the process.
:).
It's a misunderstanding to think of N'Sync as musicians. They're an entertainment act who use music as part of the package. So I think you underestimate them a bit. The "looking pretty" bit is obviously part image-constulting and camera effects, but if they really are singing at the same time they do all their dancing, it's reasonably impressive. That's not easy to do. And dancing well in time with music can be particularly powerful in creating and image/mood.
It's part of the whole entertainer thing.
And really, just like music can be part of the entertainer's bag of tricks, so can entertaining skills (stage presence, storytelling, etc) be part of a genuine musician's performance. Not always... especially as you get more and more into what people consider art music, the presentation has less and less window dressing.
But anyway, don't confuse musicians with entertainers.... show choirs with chamber choirs, britney with sting, janet jackson with natalie merchant, gwar with U2, etc
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
OK!
Who can tell me who created the comicbook character Wolverine?
Who can tell me who owns Wolverine?
That's right.
This is all about Copyright law, and corportations gaining even more power to steal material it's creator... contract or not. It worked for Marvel comics... it'll work for the RIAA.
If the RIAA could figure out a way to charge me for music that's playing in my head they would !
What I've come to realize is that for the majority of artists, this so-called piracy may have actually been working in their favor," testified alternative rock star Alanis Morissette. RAC also says artists who want to put their music on free sites like Napster should have that right -- something they don't now have.
That's from a Business Week article referenced from the Artist's Coalition site -- which, curiously enough, has the domain name "artistsagainstpiracy.com". Either they're missing something, or they've correctly realized that music sharing is not the biggest "piracy" going on here.
Anyway, as another artist put it in a senate field hearing:
"You give something to your audience, and it always seems to come back somehow."
Of course, the difference between the record industry and the artist is that the artist receives the goodwill and interest. So the record industry has to secure their return by other means...
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
First of all, to credit the RIAA, Hillary & Co. have stood up time and again about free speech, music censorship, and the like. Every time they do that, that little twinkle of faith in their organization shines a bit brighter.
But at the same time, it's a crafty setup they have going. RIAA would have you believe "Recording Industry" somehow includes singers, musicians, songwriters, producers, techs, and all the behind-the-scenes folks. Time and again, though, we are reminded that RIAA really only represents the major record labels themselves. When RIAA talks about the "artists," it's a patronizing sort of thing, becuase as we see demonstrated over and over, "art" consistently takes a back seat to the bottom line.
Now, not only do artists go into thousands and thousands of dollars of debt to record songs for record labels to exploit, the labels are now trying to take away rights to the recordings themselves under Work for Hire laws. Where does that stop, exactly? Do the songwriters lose THEIR rights to the songs they AUTHORED when their song gets cut? Do ASCAP and BMI surrender thier rights once a song is on a label's master reel? This gets ridiculous really fast.
Go capitalism, rah rah rah!
They admit "Of course, the most important component of a CD is the artist's effort in developing that music." But they carefully avoid citing actual numbers, so as not to mention that the artist only gets about 10% of the retail price. The artist is really important, and they pay him almost as much as the janitor...
My best guess at the numbers they didn't list:
Stores & distributors: 50%
CD production: 5%
Royalties: 10%
Profits, advertising, fancy offices & big salaries for the record company execs, bribing disk jockeys, bailing their stars out of jail, and covering their losses on bad music: 35%
Finally, "Each year, of the approximately 27,000 new releases that hit the market, the major labels release about 7,000 new CD titles and after production, recording, promotion and distribution costs, most never sell enough to recover these costs, let alone make a profit. In the end, less than 10% are profitable, and in effect, it's these recordings that finance all the rest."
Let's see, the major labels bring out 7,000 new CD's and less than 700 are profitable. On the other hand, small labels generally don't get the big stars (or can't afford to create synthetic stars through advertising), but somehow can afford to put out 20,000 CD's. Do the major-label guys have a serious lack of taste, or what?
As someone else pointed out, Britney and 'NSync are not primarily musicians; they are entertainers. They become mega-stars precisely because their rudimentary musicianship facilitates the creation of product that is easily digestible by a large public, most of whom are interested in the cult of personality, not music per se.
There are plenty of great musicians out there. Most are totally underpaid. And we'll never get to hear them because the recording industry is about selling product, not about promoting music.
Except, of course, the fact that recording contracts are designed to be incredibly difficult to get out of.
And that your new company would have to compete, with a small/no budget, with an industry that controls every radio station in America, several television channels, and most entertainment magazines. Oh, and you already mentioned the bin space issue.
Not to mention that a lot of people in america actually like the shit from the top 100 countdown and would need a serious bitchslap to change their homogenous, follow-the-leader, baa baa baa, ways. Got the cash for _that_ advertising campaign? Didn't think so.
There are tons of indy record labels out there and they're doing okay but certainly not going to be "Big $$$" like you seem to think.
The fact that you don't even know they exist and think you're being original or something with that half-baked bullshit is a testament to how poorly they compete on a big-money, international level.
I think your post did a lot more to support his point than rebutt it.
you dont think the artist isnt getting screwed? and if it werent for money, there would be no need for copyrights
Hmm, stretch my imagination as far as I can and I still don't see the connection between committing genocide and lobbying for copyright law.
That's because he wasn't trying to make such a connection. The connection was that an idea can be distorted to the point where it becomes practically the opposite of what it was intended to be. He never compared genocide to lobbying for copyright law at all.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
The RIAA represents "an industry".
I get it. The RIAA represents a number of corporations that are supposed to be competing *against* each other in order to serve their customers more efficiently.
The association of these supposed competitors allows them to exert more pressure against the customer and against their suppliers (musicians). It allows them to pool funds to lobby legislators and political executives, and conduct expensive litigation.
In other words, the RIAA is a cartel. It exists in order to distort the market in favour of the recording companies, and against their suppliers and customers. It does not exist to promote competition (and hence efficiency) between its members.
This may be capitalism, but it sure don't look to me like the free market.
I am anarch of all I survey.
ssia
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
If Plaintiffs were to rely on such amended certificates accurately describing any ownership interest Plaintiffs hold, the Coalition's concerns regarding the ownership issues in this case will be abated. If Plaintiffs refuse, this Court should dismiss this case on the ground that it lacks jurisdiction as the invalid, work for hire copyright registrations are the only evidence presented by Plaintiff supporting their claim of authorship and ownership.
I think you're right, and I think this quote illustrates the coalition's strategy quite well. They are basically saying that the industry needs to decide real quick which way it's going to be. Either they can go after Napster and others or they can try to screw the artists, but they can't do both. I'm very eager to find out how this will play out.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Most of the musicians I know actually are pretty heavy Napster/fs users.
Of course, I don't know any signed musicians. :)
This is one of the things that drives me crazy: most musicians get no benefit at all from the RIAA, because most musicians do not have record contracts. (Of course, it can be argued that even the musicians who do have record contracts, most of them would be better off without them: see e.g. Hole, Concrete Blonde, TLC...)
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