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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."
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.
> RIAA Represents the Recording Industry...
... didn't expect to get rich off royalties and licensing fees.
. html - was written in 1994, before Napster or the DCMA.
Exactly. http://riaa.com/About-Who.cfm
> It wasn't that long ago when artists
Most artists don't. Even relatively successful artists who thought they were going to make money sometimes find it doesn't work that way - the RIAA members make the money, the bands don't.
This article - http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/problemwithmusic
"The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 millon dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month."
rant