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Fox Explains Why SSSCA Is Bad
corbettw writes "Fox News is running an article that slams Sen. Fritz Hollings ("The Senator from Disney") and the Democrats (with the notable exception of Rick Boucher) as having betrayed their principles. More importantly, the article explains why the SSSCA is so bad, in language any American can understand. It's nice to see someone in the mainstream media taking this beast on before it becomes law."
I would be really dissapointed if Hollings is ever re-elected. The point of an elected government is to get rid of those who want to lower our freedom, and this guy is definetly going down that road, and dragging everyone he can with him.
/. all we want, but if we don't send the message in our ballots also, we have given up the battle.
We can rant and rave on
I sincerely hope that the people in his district are well aware of Sen. Holling's attrocities.
Teamwork is a bunch of people doing what I tell them.
-- Find the Truth...
What you are ignoring is the simple fact that the MPAA members, and everyone else in the music industry, learned a long, long time ago -- what people hear on the radio (and later, see on video channels) is what they buy. That's the truth -- you can argue how it's not strictly true in some ideal, controlled circumstance, but that's irrelavent. In the real world, what people hear on the radio, is what they buy.
(Again, whether it's directly true is irrelevant -- alot of kids might listen to stuff because thier friends do. But somewhere along the line, someone is influenced by all the radio play and promotions that the record companies pay for.)
The system of payloa that is currently in use right now is kind of fucked, because payola is strictly illegal -- a record company can't just send a check to the radio stations for airplay. They have to go through an inderect level of "independant" promoters who decide what music to push, and get paid based on whether or not "thier" radio stations play any of "thier" music. So by adding a layer of indirection, the system avoids the old payloa laws (which are there, because it was recognized that paying to get stuff on the air makes people want to buy it -- this is an observed fact.)
This is one of the reasons why the MPAA doesn't like mp3's at all. Because it puts the power of what to listen to into the hands of the consumers. If people can just sit down at thier computer, and listen to whatever-the-hell they want to, from all the music in the world, that shoots the record company's biggest weapon -- control of what's played on the radio -- down. If people want to listen to Cool Indie Band, and they start passing around Cool Indie Band's track, this means that they're more likely to go out and buy Cool Indie Band's album rather than an album made by an MPAA artist.
That is why the MPAA is attacking mp3's and p2p file sharing systems, not because of the arguable amount of revenue they loose because people get thier music for free -- but because it takes control of what people listen to, and what influences people's purchasing decisions, away from them, and puts it back in the hands of the consumers.
This is a huge factor in the equation, and brushing it off by saying "people buy what they want" is simply ignoring the reality that people, en masse, are manipulated into wanting what the MPAA wants to sell to them, via radio.
Obvious point about MPAA vs RIAA asside, this is an excellent overview of the problem vis. radio. The article that Slashdot references here also point out some others in the retail area.
However, I think you're ignoring the number one problem in the music marketing industry today: the labels are free to pay MTV as much as they like. They're also free to pay the teenie show of the week on WB as much as they like. So they do, in exchange for featuring their bands.
This leads us down the road where there's a constant assualt on TV viewers with paid ads (videos, interviews, guest appearances). This gives the labels huge power to invent fads. N'Sync (you UNIX types may know them as XNSync()), Brittany, Christina, Spice Girls, etc, etc were created this way. I find Brittany to be the most illuminating example. Most young girls are attracted to her as a role model because she's famous and seems happy and comfortable with her fame. Try to find someone who will say "I was a Brittany fan before she was famous" (and doesn't just mean they saw her on TV before their friends) and you'll be looking for a long time. Why? Because she was introduced with a massive media blitz that was designed to make her seem "already famous".
So, the payola situation in the Radio industry is silly (even more silly because of the very tiny number of independant stations), but TV makes it look like an honest day's work.
I'm disappointed in Slashdot's readership.
A lot of the comments so far are just reactions to where it appeared - not what it says.
Whatever you think of FoxNews, try to read the article without projecting on it what you think it's going to say. Note that it's really an opinion piece, apparently part of Fox's Straight Talk feature - corbettw mislabelled it in his summary.
The article in my view is really just analyzing the political risks and possibilities for both parties here. The reality is that both the Democrats and Republicans support constituencies at times that are at odds with the philosphies they publicly profess. In this case it's the support that several heavyweight Democrats have been giving to the recording and movie industries for the SSSCA. Glenn Reynolds (the author) really would like to see the SSSCA buried and all he's really doing here is pointing out is that the Republicans could help kill it AND potentially score political points for doing so.
Glenn Reynolds also produces music in his spare time when he's not teaching law. He also runs a 'blogger' website with nearly hourly comments. He's also a Slashdot reader and poster (which is how I first heard about his web site InstaPundit). I've been reading his site since just before 9/11 and he's been consistent in criticizing the record industry for its corruptness and sneaky ploys to take advantage of the consumer. He's hardly a ideological Republican. Mostly he's libertarian and anti-Idiotarian in his viewpoints. In this, I don't think he's that far off from most Slashdot readers. That is, if they can overlook their media outlet biases.