Slashdot Mirror
Would a Boycott of the MPAA/RIAA Help Matters?
ChrisGoodwin asks: "Why do geeks support MPAA and RIAA? Here on Slashdot, the talk is all about how evil the film and record companies are. But when the next Star Wars or Matrix or Lord of the Rings comes out, it's all about camping out to get tickets. According to RIAA's web site, member companies distribute 90% of the legitimate sound recordings in the United States; chances are, if you've ever bought music, you've given them money. (Take a look at their list of members.) Heck, most of the film companies own, are owned by, or share a corporate parent with a record company, and many of us get our internet access from part of the MPAA/RIAA conglomerate. So why is it? Why do we continue to buy their product? Why are we giving them money so that they can harass us? Why hasn't there been a call for a boycott of the record and film industries?" This is in the FAQ, but this is certainly a discussion worth having. With the pervasiveness of media in our society, for some it is not as easy as "boycott" or "no boycott", and it may be unfair to the artists we like for us to do so, and as Big Media diversifies, a boycott on movies and music may still not be enough. So do you feel a boycott of mass media will help matters, or would such be counter-productive in some way?
People still go to theaters because there is currently no other method to see these movies the way they're meant to be seen: Big Picture, Big Sound. Until a reasonable solution to showing these movies the way they're supposed to be seen is devised, people will still support the RIAA/MPAA out of lack of options.
It's unfortunate the government is just a hand-puppet for the media monopoly or otherwise I'm certain they would have been disbanded a long time ago making way for more competition.
Those with children:Try explaining to little Suzy why she can't have the latest Britney cd, or why you
/.ers use products everyday made by large, greedy corps. So, you make the call. Boycott? Me thinks this would work only if you got enough people together to hit the bottom line of these companies. Something on the order of Napster's followers when it was popular.
Now, I am going to get flamed for this opinion, but that's ok. The truth is out there.
don't want her to go the movies because of your beliefs.
I doubt she will care.
[sarcasm]I'm sure the looks you'll get when you explain to her why the **AA's are bad will justify it.[/sarcasm]
Those without children:is it ok to support a large corporation that's greedy? Well, apparently so, since the majority of
Sent from your iPad.
There is a simple way you can take action against the MPAA and RIAA. Donate your old music CDs and movie videos to your public library.
If you later decide that you want to hear or watch something you donated, just get it out of the library.
A boycott will only work if an alternative method of distribution grows along side it.
From a record company exec's point of view, 5% of people stopped buying his product is a problem.
For that same exec, 5% of people are sidestepping his entire business model and listening to artists who get paid without him getting a cut is a mortal threat.
You can't destory the old without creating an alternative if you want to change the world for the better.
If sales happened to go down because of this, they would probably blame lack of sales on file sharing and piracy. They've done it before.
For this reason and because we geeks make up a small portion of all who give money to them, it's probably best for us to increase awareness of all the bad that the MPAA/RIAA are doing and support groups like the EFF.
I think the problem is that us Geeks have not done a good job of alerting the public at large. Even if we boycott every geek-centric film. The masses will still flock to the latest Hugh Grant / Julia Roberts film and still buy the latest generic pop (poop) album. I think the key is educating the consumer whores. If they stop consuming everything shoveled in front of them and take a stand based on ethics and value (not marketing), we may just be able to get some changes made
Insert sig here (slashdot) Insert cig here (Lewinsky)
The church where I go pays a license fee (based on the size of the church) to sing a bunch of the newer songs. I protested to the guy who pays the bills, saying we should only sing public domain stuff. The fee (which is not all that much, really) goes to some company which is part of the RIAA. I figured all this out and am still trying to determine how upset I should be. I love the image of a Christian musician offering his works to the church "for the glory of God", and looming behind him is the dark visage of the State: "don't even think about singing these without paying!"
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Give some of their bucks to EFF or EPIC. That doesn't mean "don't go to the movies"... it just means offset your media habit with some donations to the people who fight for you!
That's what I do. I give 65 USD every year to the EFF, and I don't spend any more than that on major-label music or movies.
Want to know more? Take the Lessig Challenge
Will I retire or break 10K?
Hey, guys:
;)
Boycotting the MPAA and RIAA won't do any good, for one major reason: the number of people who actually care about this issue is so small compared to the population at large that the RIAA and MPAA is unlikely to even notice that a boycott is occurring.
What WILL happen is that the people involved in the boycott will punish themselves, suffering weeks without internet access, movies, music, and so on, all just to find out that their suffering has all been in vain.
Then, there are the logistical problems. How, for instance, will boycotters coordinate their activities if they cannot read Slashdot because their ISP is their cable company? And, if they cannot coordinate their efforts, isn't it possible that at least some of them will never realize the boycott is over, ending up forty years from now like latter-day Rip Van Winkles, trying to plug decades-old Linux boxen into some hyper-modern network? Hair down to their ankles, teeth rotten away, eyes frozen into a thousand-yard stare?
Let alone the withdrawl symptoms they'll experience when they give up their favorite games. Public-service wards will fill with people whose thumbs continually twitch, twitch, twitch in a memorized UT sequence... Periodically they'll yell "BUY A BIGGER GUN!" The orderlies will be nervous wrecks. Electroshock will certainly follow.
No, friends, I think I'll pass. I think it will be a lot more fun if one of us creates a half-life mod oriented around the MPAA and/or RIAA headquarters and posts it to a friendly mirror. Surely at least ONE employee of one of these agencies reads slashdot? And, surely SOMEONE out there likes doing game mods, and has a few hours to spare?
I'd just like to see the boss battle against Valenti. THAT would be SOMETHING. Do a sort of "ROBOVALENTI" theme, maybe. Use really bad, color mug shots from the media. Animate it like on SouthPark. Maybe do something like the "bedroom" scene between Saddam and the devil? Um... Or not.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
And refine your tastes.
What, you mean watch/listen to total crap? I don't have time to wade through an Internet full of 10,000,000 19-year-old boys who think they're the best DJ since their hero Darude, just so I can find a couple of albums' worth of decent music. I don't have the patience to watch some turtleneck-wearing indie filmmaker mentally masturbating through his camera lens for an hour and a half just to see his own name scroll by 20 times in the credits at the end.
There are no small clubs around here. Oh, wait, yes there are... and they suck. I don't like rock music, and I don't like top 40... the answer is probably to live in a town that isn't in the geographical butthole of the continent, but that's not feasible right now. I could go to the local comedy club, but I can only hear comics make fun of how cold it is so many times, especially when this is one of the mildest winters so far I can remember.
What IS feasible is to watch Dennis Miller and Jerry Seinfeld when they come to town. Oops, I just supported Ticketmaster. I can go home and watch South Park, Home Movies, Inu-Yasha, Cowboy Bebop, and The Simpsons. Oops, shite, there's Viacom, FOX, and my local cable company. I can go to a film... oops, dammit, there's more money to Carmike Choke-The-Life-Out-Of-Cinema, and probably Sony while I'm at it. I could play Animal Crossing... wait, no I can't. Nintendo may be cuter than Sony, but they're still anticompetitive.
I can come to the computer lab and bitch about how hard it is to boycott things without subjecting myself to a life full of lousy entertainment... uh-oh. now I'm using Windows XP. I could go to a hockey game, and watch the top-rated college hockey team in the nation beat your team... but then my five bucks is going to support the arena staff, who have little regard for the students (after all, we don't pay full price).
So, screw it. I'm an American; my life has become softer and easier as time goes by, and I don't want to give it up. I'm accustomed to the perks that massive funding and corporate support can provide, and at this point, there's not that much I'm willing to do otherwise. I'll give my share to the EFF and ACLU, and wave signs when it's appropriate, but a boycott? this isn't the 60s, and these aren't buses.
"It ain't that phricken difficult, folks.
Movies: Only attend matinees, if you MUST see it in a theatre.
DVD's: Only buy used. Period. It's not that difficult to find a pawn shop, or ebay, or whatever.
Music: Only buy used. Again, it's not that hard to find your favorite artists. Wanna support the artist? Go see their show, buy their ts-shirt or cd AT THE SHOW.
I utterly REFUSE to give those fsckers another dime that I don't absolutely have to."
This would not work. Period. All they'll see is that there's a decline in sales. Where do you think they'll place the blame? Hint: Their first assumption won't be that they're being boycotted.
At best, it'd backfire. Ironically, it'd probably be useful to give them more money. As silly as it sounds, the RIAA sounded incredibly idiotic when they claimed that Napster cut into their sales while they were at the peak of their sales.
I bet you a contributing factor to the dismissal of the SSSCA was that the MPAA couldn't make legitimate claims of losses. If people really did shift over to P2P like the *AA fears, then a different story might have emerged from that whole ordeal.
Isnt that kind of the side effect of monopolization? Has anyone ever considered that they dont have any *competition*?
I only buy second hand stuff from mainstream artists. Thankfully much of the great and innovative music today isnt from them.. its just *much* harder to find bands like Show of Hands, Machinae Supremacy and a whole army of cool Newfoundland bands in your local music shop.
.. lets face it with current music rates they aren't making *any* money anyway.
Yeah some artists aren't getting any money from me now. It's an unfortunate side effect but it also might help persuade them to move
If you want to make money in the music industry,w ear a suit and work in the office 9-5. Musicians don't make any of the money executives do.
Put money into supporting artists signed with non-RIAA labels, and support non-MPAA movies. No, it won't hurt the RIAA or MPAA directly, but it financially supports these companies, and makes them a more feasible choice for artists. If more and more artists are able to work for more scrupulous record labels and film studios, we will begin to have more choices, and be able to purchase more and more stuff that isn't distributed through the **AA.
Take a look at websites like www.cdbaby.com that sell stuff by independent artists, you might be surprised at the quality of stuff they distribute.
If the boycott were at all successful, their sales would fall. If sales fall, whither the first blame? Pointing out the boycott as a reason would go ignored, they'd downplay the effectiveness. They could then point to the declining profits as an excuse to forward more DMCA-like evils.
The power of the (RI,MP)AA derives from controlling the vast, vast majority of content. The only way to do away with it, or ever to lessen its hold is to get content creators to simply find ways to do without the corps. The internet can be a big help in this. Support non-RIAA artists! It may take a while, but their hold will lessen.
I have pretty much quit going to theaters since they've all been turned into claustrophobia-inducing shoeboxes with cardboard walls. Not much of a Big Picture, Big Sound experience when you hear half the dialogue and all the effects from the movies playing on either side of you.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
I don't watch movies - too expensive for too little return. I barely watch tv - 50,000 channels of bad programming. I only have cable b/c it's the only broadband I have access too. I hardly listen to radio - it's all value-removed repackaging and advertising. As such, I buy one cd a year now (a HUGE change for an ex-dj). Print media is ok from time to time b/c of of pricing and depth and choice. I get most of my news, information and entertainment from the net, libraries and books. I'm a pop-culture hermit.
:)
I've been doing this for years now, after having worked in the media. And you know what, they don't care and wouldn't notice if we all did it. Why? They never do an actually random sample when they do ratings. People such as my self are consider an anomoly and are automatically dropped - you can't even fill out the forms. They argue dropping the extremes makes for a better sample (like in some olympic judging), but they seem to always leave in the guy who has colostomy bag so he doesn't have to miss his show.
The important word here is that they are a cartell. In a monopoly, you have no choice. With a cartell, you have very very little choice. Boycotts do not work against monopolys, cartells, utilities and commodities. Sadly, it may be time for regulation - the ultimate vengence. However, after having read about their accounting practices, I don't see why they couldn't be taken down through the RICO laws.
Democrats and Republicans only disagree about how to enslave you
Boycotting the *AA's would be a very difficult task, given how much of a monopoly they have on our media-saturated society these days. Even if we did succeed, they would probably attribute the lost sales to piracy. (The only way I could see around that is getting some media attention on the issue, so that the public KNOWS a boycott is taking place. But given that the *AA's serious control of the media...the web is probably your best bet to get the word out.)
/.'s have in their arsenal is technology, how about we putting it to good use?
So what is the slashdot crowd to do?
Most of the suggestions that have been made so far include:
1) Give the *AA's as little money as possible if you can't seem to break the addiction to mainstream media (every little bit of revenue you keep out of their pockets helps, and more importantly it DOES add up)
2) Doing the Congress-critter crawl and urging friends/family to do the same, and also supporting the EFF. (Consider a donation to the EFF as a Christmas present that can give you a good return on your digital freedoms in the future, and don't give up on politics and the law yet, they CAN work with consistent pressure and concerted effort.)
But here's one suggestion that I haven't seen anyone else come up with:
Attack the *AA on their own turf. When I say attack, I don't mean "run off and DDos their networks or start pirating their material". A bunch of highly-opinionated, screaming geeks will fail to change the general public's perception of things as they truly do stand, so we have to work in a manner that they DO understand.
I'm sure everyone out there has friends or knows people who really want to make their own movies, start a band, etc. or who does this on their own time. How about we give them a hand? One of the most potent things
I'm sure there are enough geeks out there who could lend their techincal expertise in setting up or running some *nix sound recording and mastering software for the garage band practicing next door. How about using those graphics skills to add some polish and shine to your buddy's new movie that he's shooting as a labor of love? Or you could help you friend set up a website for distributing their creations.
I know it may sound cheesy, but think about it, it is possible to give some of these budding artists a helping hand in creating some truly high quality work, and not one second or dime is wasted on the big media companies. What this is also does it turn's people's attention to what will be considered an 'underground/amateur' media scene.
At the very worst, you've had some fun helping people and learned/mastered/improved your technical skills on some interesting projects. Probably even opened a few people's minds about being creative on a grass roots level.
At the best, people might start being turned off by mass-produced cheesy crap when they realize that controlled distribution channels prevent them from experiencing good media, because some bean-counter thought it wouldn't turn a profit. In the very best case, they might become jaded towards big media productions...
Since these are labors of love, the cost is bearable by the people who make them, (in fact, I'm guessing most of them don't even see it as a 'cost' as much as an expression of their artistic freedom), and the big media industries will have a hard time competing with something that's 'cool because it's NOT made by big media'.
Actually, you wouldn't believe how much it hurt Shell when people boycotted them for the Brent Sparr (Greenpeace's 'miscalculation' is a whole other ball of stinking socks though).
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
The business model was once good, but times, technology and people's expectations have changed. Now the business model is shit .... let me explain.
First, manufacturing costs have been rapidly dropping. Has that translated into lower prices for end consumers? No. Has that translated into more royalties for the artists? No. So the raw materials suppliers (artists) and retail consumers (you and me) are both wondering where the money is going.
Second, new technologies have opened the door for cheaper distribution methods. The industry has made a step in this direction, but early reviews indicate it is not very sincere. The consumers are clamoring for using computers and networks for music distribution, but the industry doesn't really want to lose their control. Instead of the industry joining with consumers and better integrating music into people's psyche, they are taking an antagonistic view.
Third, new technologies are allowing consumers to integrate music into more parts of their life. Today one can easily listen to their favorite music from the moment they wake up, through their shower, drive to work, etc, until they go to sleep. Has the industry participated in this revolution? No. They have instead been figuring out ways to kill it. Again they are fighting to keep their customers from listening to music on their mp3 players, computers, etc.
Fourth, the marketing plans were born of an era when ideas could be pushed to consumers through a small number of controlled outlets (radio and tv stations). With the internet, consumers can easily talk amongst themselves about what is good and what isn't. It shocks me that the industry is not jumping on the internet and providing a service to match people with artists/songs based on their current listening preferences. Up until now they focused their marketing on a few groups (so as not to confuse the consumers). However with the internet, they can market many more groups to many more customers and in the process increase the amount of music that people listen to.
It's unbelievable. Consumers want to listen to music -- but the record industry doesn't seem interested in actually supplying them with the product they want. On the other side, their raw material suppliers (artists) are actively trying ways to circumvent the media giants and RIAA so they can feel their work is not being taken advantage of.
In any business when you've got both your customers and suppliers by the balls -- you should be commended for your business acumen. But you should also know that your situation is unique and it is only a matter of time before these people come back and break your balls.
The business model is shit because it is adverserial. Work with suppliers, customers and technology to create a win/win for everyone and then I'll say they have a good business model.
One of my favorite artists just released their new CD without a label. They were signed previously to labels. Their older CDs are still available on Amazon. But this particular guy is obviously rejecting the system. He sells his CDs directly through a website that specializes in exactly this kind of thing. The website claims that the artist gets to keep "most" of the money from their CDs with a "weekly check" :).
His stuff is sufficiently obscure apparently that you can't even find it on p2p now that Audio Galaxy is gone. If more artists would do this we wouldn't have the RIAA to complain about for much longer.
It's the label that you're screwing over, not the artist. The artist doesn't usually even own those songs you've downloaded anymore. That he created them is irrelevant. He sold them to a record company in the hopes of large sums of money (from millions of $1 royalties I guess). He did this in the belief that getting signed to a label was the only way to produce music as a "day job", and that might even have been true as little as 5 years ago...
We didn't fsck the "music industry". The internet did. Its very existence makes them redundant.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
It's good to see that people are actually talking about this again. As the founder of boycott-riaa.com on July 13, 2002, I've been at this for quite sometime. When the original threat of Napster being shutdown loomed, people got incensed and it made difference. That lasted right up until other file sharing programs became available.
We still get a large number of visitors who drop by the site on a daily basis, to check to see what the news is. Some of the most recent articles include: "RIAA's Statistics Don't Add Up to Piracy" (article) and The RIAA's response to "How many CD Burners were there actually in the Queens Bust?"(article) seems there were a heck of a lot less than the equivalent the stated. Straight from the horse's mouth
My personal boycotting lead me to start buying independent music and I've actually been buying more music than I ever did from RIAA artists and labels. Partially because its often cheaper, around $8.00 -$10.00, and partially because the music is often much better, than what the majors are putting out.
In 2001 RIAA sales were down 5% and they RIAA laid off 16 people in Jan 2002. This year the sales are down 7% to 9% (depending on whose numbers you read) hopefully we can look forward to more layoffs. Less staff less impact. The RIAA membership dues are a portion of the labels sales, lower sales=smaller budget=less impact.
Those that say there is no affect on the RIAA and MPAA are misguided. In the past 2 1/2 years I've bought over 150 CDs from independent musicians, money that went to them, not to RIAA labels. But the largest affect that has taken place is that people are begining to discover independent music, are buying it, ignoring the majors offerings, and as a result the RIAA is becoming the Maginot Line of the music industry. We make them irrelvant by bypassing them. What else is happening is that artists are beginning to wake up speaking out as well, Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian, Elton John, The RAC headed by Don Henley, just to name a few. The RIAA's positions coupled with a loss of sales, has come to the attention of Congress, The DOJ to name but a few and many former backers in congress are finding that the RIAA isn't always right or even telling them the truth. Unethical business practices are coming to light that have been the industry standard for years, that are forcing changes in the way the industry works, in their actions toward artists and consumers.
This is not an if/then type of thing, there are a lot of varibles involved, that each action has an effect somewhere, maybe very subtle, but the overall result is that while the RIAA is winning the battles, they are losing the war. And their desperation is showing.
Doing so, that is, "ignoring" what RIAA/MPAA sell to you means ignoring the work of the artists behind all that stuff....so yes. It harms the RIAA/MPAA, but it harms the artists even more....and it's the artists that are essential for the industry, or your interest in music/movies/snips to survive.
The solution is the other way around, "artists and producers" need to "ignore" the RIAA/MPAA and find alternative distribution models, alternative promotion models, and change the way they deal with customers....as of now....every customer who pays $14 to a retailer, and gets one CD, is paying the retailer around $2, and the rest goes to RIAA distributors, who keep another dollar and a half, and pass on the rest to the record company. So the record company gets around US$ 10.5 per CD sold at full price.
Out of that, depending on how good a deal the lawyers of the band managed to cut out, the artist gets somewhere between US$1 to US$3 per disc, plus the check they got for recording if they were lucky. Record studios keep the rest, and account for production/promotion costs.
Let's say "Public Enemy" did an album, got paid US$2 a disc ("good" payment), and a bill of US$ 0.5 million for recording it (highly unlikely), and they sold a million copies, then overall, RIAA managed to get US$ 8 per disc, let's deduct US$ 1 for production (too much, but then let's take the worst case), and put a hefty big promotion worth US$ 1 million for the overall project, then too, the record label made a total of US$ 6 million on this recording in just the base first week/month sales of the album. Whereas artists made US$ 2.5 million, but then that's the best case for the artist, and the worst for the company.
In real world, not only do the artists get paid far less, they also loose the rights to their own work, and that means being unable to "re-sell" their own old music to another company, when their contract with one company expires, or breaks out.
The artist got only US$ 2.5 (in an optimal case) for 1 million copies of his album, lost his music; fans got Costlier CDs, RIAA got rich.
Let's say the artists did everything all by themselves, produce, market, promote and then sell, one album for US$ 7 for a physical "CD", and an electronic download for US$ 5.5 for the entire album download, or US$1.5 for the "best singles".
It costs US$ 0.5 million to get two weeks for a final recording in a good sound studio. It costs US$1 to make a CD with jewel case and covers, a nice poster and a nice lyrics booklet. Let's say they spent US$.5 million in making and spreading a music video, US$0.5 million in promos and adverts, and outsourced distribution from one of the underground low-price distribution networks, pay them US$ 1 per CD sold, the total cost, other than the artistic talent, comes to around US$ 3 to produce an album.
Let's say they sold 1 million CDs, because other than their talent, the marketing was better because they spent more money, and went the right way, and then, the album is cheaper, and has more goodies. They still own their music, they earn from the online sales in "full", and that single the public really fancied will sell so much for US$1.5 that it would make them even more money to pump into promos. This lands the band on a cash pit of over US$ 5 million, while making it cheaper for customers to acquire their music.
Now, obviously, a new artist won't have so much money to pump into all this, so the established ones need to begin on this first, and the others will soon latch on. Obviously, there will be other music companies, those who will be the "breeding ground" for new upcoming artists, invest in their effort, and overall, make money, but then, the internet makes it so much easier to begin small, and then grow up big for any artist.
Now, the dynamics for the movie industry are a little different, and i'm not so familiar with those, but i guess similar things apply there too, specifically in the DVD sales area.
So guys, it's the artists who need to "ignore" the RIAA/MPAA alliance, and find alternative means to reach their audience. Not the other way around.