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Ask Singer Janis Ian About the RIAA and Online Music

Posted by Roblimo on from the fallout-from-the-internet-debacle dept.

Janis Ian has been a popular songwriter and performer since the 1960s, and has decided that Internet music downloads help her and many other recording artists. She wrote an article saying so, then wrote a followup piece, and now it's time for Janis to answer your questions about how the RIAA, the "major labels," and online filesharing affect artists like her. We'll send 10 of the highest moderated questions to Janis tomorrow and post her answers when we get them back. (Off-topic note: Alton Brown has not forgotten Slashdot. He had some show taping problems that messed up his schedule, and asks us to be patient, please.)

4 of 334 comments (clear)

  1. Life without RIAA by ahknight · · Score: 5, Insightful

    RIAA is evil. This is an established fact of life. What I'd like to know, from an artist's standpoint, is how SHOULD it be? Now you sign with a label that helps production and then calls you a hired hand and steals your music. How should it work, start to finish? What's currently broken that's stopping this? Do you have any ideas on how we can fix this for the artist, as a society? How can we get involved to help the artists?

  2. Helping the artists.... by Spazzz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What exactly does the RIAA do to help the individual artists, anyhow? To me, it appears that their business model is to protect the record companies at all costs, and do very little for the actual creators.

  3. Re:How much? by elefantstn · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Do you not find it strange that a 2-hour DVD, with commentary, subtitles, and extra scenes, can be sold for less than $10, while few audio CDs are that low priced?


    This argument is pointless. Do you not find it strange that record companies don't make hundreds of millions of dollars from people coming to listen to albums before they can buy them on CD? There's no comparison between DVDs and CDs because (successful) movies have already made back the cost of production before they ever get to DVD.
    --
    If it ain't broke, you need more software.
  4. Re:How much? by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do you not find it strange that a 2-hour DVD, with commentary, subtitles, and extra scenes, can be sold for less than $10, while few audio CDs are that low priced?

    Do you find it strange that a hard-working janitor can be hired for $6/hour but a computer programmer who sits on his ass downloading music on napster all day charges $75/hour?