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."
...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.
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.
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
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