Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
...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.
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
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.
- 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$
...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.
Are the AFM really doing nothing about Work For Hire?
Tom.
Oh arse
Just a small point or two...
The artists may be lucky to get a dollar per record, however: They get fronted money to record - cheapest you're looking at is around 70 thousand pounds in this country for an entire album start to finish, they get free PR plus the contacts to have their music distributed to DJ's, played on the radio, put in the shops. They get Tours organised for them (which virtually always lose money, by the way) plus living money etc etc. So the reason they get so little from the actual record sale is because the record company will have fronted god knows how much money from them and needs to get it back.
Don't kid yourself that the recording companies make all the money from a 15 quid CD either. Most of it (over 50 percent in some cases) goes to the retailer.
Before you rubbish me, I've been there and done it, so I know.
I'm not coming out in support of record companies either, I think Pete Waterman is the human incarnation of Satan in particular, but please try to make the story a little more accurate. I'd love to see the artists get more money. I'd love to steal CD's from a shop and send the artist five quid for every one I take, but I'm allergic to prison.
Be realistic in what you wish for... Life without record companies is possible for bands, but a hell of a lot harder.
Now you can flame me...
-Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience-
...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.
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
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.
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.
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.