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RIAA Now Targeting Retailers
merodach writes "According to this story on Headlinenews.com the RIAA is now targeting retailers in it's 'war on piracy.' I think everyone will agree this is something that should be done if the retailer is deliberately pirating. The thing I wonder about in hearing this news is how many of the retailers include used copy stores. With the way the RIAA and some artists *cough*Garth Brooks*cough* have labeled these stores as pirates and theives in the past it seems likely they would be the biggest targets. Have any in the /. crowd actually seen one of the letters sent or know how many of the targeted businesses are used stores? Further - how would the RIAA know how much to demand in 'settlement fees' and is it possible these are being used to shut down the mom-and-pop outfits that trade in used CDs?"
I can see it now....
you have bought the new Britney Spears CD...congratulations on your excellent choice and fine musical selection...
LEGALESE: - This CD may not be resold or reproduced in any matter...opening this CD certifies that you agree to this stipulation.
----
and the legal warning will be on the inside of the CD...bastards..
on the bright side, that should galvanize mainstream support against them...maybe only a small percentage download mp3's, but I'm willing to be a higher proportion of people use used mom and pop shops....if for no other reason then to acquire out of print material...shut those down and America will maybe open their eyes...
of course...they do buy Britney Spears...how smart can they be...
RB
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Well, first the public has to know that there *is* an RIAA.
The Slashdot crowd may be familiar with them, but I guarantee that 99% of the music-buying public has never even heard of them. And I'm sure the RIAA likes it that way.
Anyone have details about this? I can't find anything on google. Who is the "they?" Is this Illinois law, or Chicago or Cook County? Is this even true that I would have to have my photo and SSN taken when I buy a used DVD? Are the RIAA and MPAA behind this? What the hell is going on?
Call me a cynic, but this is a handy opportunity to:
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
Commercial outlets (valid copyright infringers) is where they SHOULD have started with in the beginning!
Back-in-the-day it would torque me to no end buying discount tapes (cassett thank you) in retail stores, only to open them and find they were obvious, cheep bootlegs even before playing them twice before breaking.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Those mom and pop stores are merely selling plastic and aluminium disks...They are not selling/ the rights to play those disks in a CD player.
Now, if I remember correctly, 90% of record companies belong to the RIAA. What about the 10%? what gives the RIAA the right to pretend to represent that last 10%?
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I went to WalMart the other day and was told by the manager that it was against the DMCA to allow returns or refunds of computer software and/or CDs.
:-/
It took a while (and I had to go pretty far up the chain of command) to assure them that Congress never wrote "All businesses have to give refunds/returns except WalMart" in the DMCA.
Something to be on the look-out for.
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
But I'm so damn disgusted with the whole mess I don't even bother. In the napster heyday I was buying music like crazy. More than I had in years. I'm in my 40's and way out of the demographic for music comsumers, but I was downloading on napster and finding new music and buying cd's like I was a teen again. Since the riaa nonsence I've stoped buying cd's (althoug I did become a member of emusic, what a great collection of jazz and blues. actually I see emusic as the worlds largest cut out bin.) I refuse to buy my teenage daughter any cd's this christmas. screw the greed of the record companies. And to top it off, my mother bought some crappy cd at target that refuses to play in her older cd player. she's returned it twice and they refuse to give her a refund. I just can't believe how insanely stupid the record companies are. treating your customers like thieves and criminals is no way to run a business... but a perfect way to ruin one. fark the record companies right in the arse. they desirve it. morons.
The article just talks about *counterfeit* copies.
RTFA first.
I think it's good they turn to something they can actually enforce. It's much easier to walk into Bob's Illegal CDs and bust the poor Bob than some dynamically assigned IP of a poor script kiddy.
[sarcastick grin]Go RIAA[/sarcastic grin]
I hate the fact that you people don't salute me
Could the speculation please be saved for the comments page? The blurb for the article is about 1/3 informative, and 2/3 wild speculation about how it's an evil attempt to shut down used music stores (even though the article said nothing about it.)
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I say Hillary should go on down to the Salvation Army and get into a fight with a drunk about whether or not he can buy those "New Kids on The Block" and "Menudo" cassettes.
Maybe they'll take her in the back room and beat her head with a 40 Oz. 'till the white meat shows.
Sigh...dare to dream...
Seems like some of these are actions would be legitimate. The problem, of course, is where to draw the line. Personally, I think as soon as you start burning CD's for profit then you are pirating. Burning for your own use? That's when the overzealousness kicks in.
My own personal theoary as to why CD sales are down has to do with local bands. Your local garage band can now make tonnes of CD's of their music fairly cheaply, by-passing the usual media outlets. People buy the music they want from the concerts they go to, and the particular bands that interest them.
Until the record labels realize that, however, they are going to continue to bleed green.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Last week, Secret Service agents in New York arrested three men and seized 35,000 illegally copied music discs, 10,000 movies on DVD and 421 compact disc burners that are used to make the counterfeit products.
I guess the "equivalent of 421 compact disc burners" has now officially become 421 compact disc burners.
+1 for the RIAA spinmeister team.
-1 for truth.
Remember Napster? I am sure people know about RIAA
Just last week I went down to Geraldi's, my favorite local mom and pop sub shop (seating capacity of about 8, counting the outside table) here in downtown Portand, and noticed a handwritten sign taped to one of the coolers. It reads Now, I guess I'm still ambivalent/undecided about the greater argument here, but this particular injunction - visited upon a struggling and honest small business owner - just struck me as being thorough to the point of malice.
Obviously the owner isn't making any additional sandwich sales from having RIAA-approved background music playing as opposed to the TV news or whatever. Certainly not $265/year's worth.
Decentralization: the brief interval between the decline of one centralized regime and rise of another.
There has been a dramatic drop in the release of new artists and CDs in the last (approximately) two years. Something around 30% less. These sort of figures would show a court that the RIAA would seem to be interested in nothing more than control and to gain control distortion of the facts is a legimate tactic.
/. or TheRegister (possibly the BBC or New York Times).
Distortion of the truth is nothing new. Politicians, newspapers and even myself are guilty of it by omitting facts or over emphasis of point. But all three of us have some accountability, in my case either my manager or my wife.
Can a group like the EFF get a test case going (like in the original BetaMax case) to see what the courts would decide. Then the FUD would die right off.
I forget where I read it. It would have been either
"There is magic in the web." - Othello Act 3 Scene 4.
If I can't buy a used cd, what do you think I'm going to do?
copy it from someone else.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
I mean, come on... we didn't think we were actually buying anything, did we? We haven't allowed ourselves to believe that the physical media into which copyrighted information is embedded actually becomes property once paid for, have we? How silly... we're lucky, some may even say blessed, to have so wonderous an oportunity as to pay a one-time (and fully taxable) fee for indefinite rental rights to said vessel of copyrighted creation. Resale? Don't you feel that this is asking a bit much? The RIAA can only do so much, and I feel that it is childish (perhaps even morally wrong) for us to continue whining in this fashion. All we do is take, take, take from this honorable, upstanding congregation of the most hardworking individuals in the recording world. Perhaps, instead of crying over some antiquity that is the idea of "used" record stores, we should take this moment to give something back to the RIAA. I say: rush out and show the true colors of your consumerism this instant! Don't be shy, you know you want the "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" soundtrack...
of course their declining record sales have nothing to do with the public is now fed up of mass marketed pop music where record contracts are won not by original musical talent and song writing , but by nieve and desperate individuals in f***ing competitions while real talent falls into the gutter, leaving a trail of destruction in its path while the instigators get rich.
The only thing killing music is not kids downloading mp3's or pirating dvds at market stalls
why is it that so many companies have so much contempt for their customers and choose to be greedy instead of actually concentrating on superior products ?
1)Open a CD Shop.
2)Sell the original with a copy CD with the tracks in mp3/ogg/whatever as a backup/digital medium copy.
3)Shovel millions to lawyers.
4)Counter sue for violating fair use.
5)After losing every court battle give up and bitch about it on slashdot.
Isn't this the same RIAA press release that spawned a recent Reg article?
Well, that's only fair. I mean, it's pretty obvious they've lost their own...
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
They need to blow Electronics Boutique out of the water for trafficking in used DVDs (including music video DVDs)... not to mention played (and presumably copied) games.
Then they can go after Walmart because they re-release some of their products after editing the content.
After that, might as well go after Borders & FYE, because of those machines that let you listen to the music before you buy. After all, not buying a CD because it sucks is bad for business.
As a business plan, suing everyone is not very clever. What happens when the RIAA has sued all of their customers, retailers, and distributors?
Does that mean they'll finally go away?
the problem with the riaa's strategy against used cd shops is that the shops themselves don't carry pirated cds.
customer a sells a cd to the shop. shop marks up the cd 20 to 50%. then sells to customer b. customer b copies the cd at home (or several selected songs) and returns the cd. the result is that customer b gets his or her music for a couple of bucks all of which goes to the shop.
the problem for the riaa is that the shop never has an illegal cd, never has to copy them. and i sincerely doubt that used cd shops keep records of their customers. and even if they did, the riaa has no grounds to simply requisition customer lists and search their residences.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
I can't be the only one who is getting really sick of hearing about the RIAA shenanigans (I'm not bitching about Slashdot.. I mean in general). The more crap they try to pull, the more they guarantee that they will only be a flash in the pan.
No organization whose sole motive is greed will ever last. Microsoft started traveling down this path and is now learning about it the hard way on many fronts... which is cool, because they are learning and trying to adjust. RIAA, on the other hand, is incapable of adjusting their greediness because it is their only reason for existence.
I wish they would just hurry up and die.
I am not advocating this at all, and I'm certain many people already do it, just a point of discussion.
The article states that cd sales have descreased slightly over the last two years. While obviously some of this is due to piracy, I believe that the majority of the drop is due to A) The fact that cd's are just too expensive for B) The crap that artists are putting out now.
The second point being why I am in favor of individual track purchase online.
Anyway, one way to bring the average price down would be to simply purchase a CD new, rip the tracks and then sell the disk to a used cd store. The cd store is not in violation so they should be safe. So now what you've done is effectively saved a couple dollars off the CD's retail price, and given someone else the opportunity to buy a physically brand new disk for a discounted price.
While this does involve an illegal act on the original buyers part, do the ends justify the means? If the RIAA is told anonymously en mass that people who engage in this behavior would stop is cd prices were actually worth paying, maybe it could happen...
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
You are kidding right? You can trust CNN ??.
What fantasy world are you living in, buddy?
You know they call 'em fingers but I've never seen 'em fing. Oh, there they go.
They're just going after stores where RIAA reps have found and purchased unlicensed compilations (BEST OF LATIN HITS!, etc.) or counterfeit copies of commercial releases. It's really not significantly different from the bootleg raids they do now and then. Billboard has a more detailed article.
Well, in the CNN article this story links to, that has become simply "421 compact disc burners." No mention of "equivalency" anywhere.
Sigh.
..not sure what the bogus law is, but as far as I know any "human" can play his own boombox with his "legal" cd's or over the air radio. Now probably the store can't as an official policy play music without paying the vig to the goons, but suppose they didn't tell you to turn off your music when you came in, and for some reason the other customers could hear it and they didn't mind? How it would work is first come, first served, just like the meal. If you as a customer come in, and no one is playing their radio or cd player, swell, it's your choice to fire up tunes or talk of choice and listen until you leave the restaurant, then it's the next customers turn if they choose so.
Maybe some famous anonymous slashdot internet & music lawyer might want to comment?
Locally, Tower Records advertises on the radio that they will sell you a CD, you rip a copy, and then they'll buy it back for $4.00 less than they charged.
I'm not easy to shock but that seems pretty "out there" to me.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
I thought they were something specifically produced for this market, but after reading the article I think the RIAA has the right to go after these guys. Its one thing to make copies for personal use, but entirely another to mass produce and sell them in a convenience store chain.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Except some software you cannot just resell if you are not using it anymore. Most software bought through an educational discount, for example, cannot be resold or resold within a certain number of years. The license of windows that you got with your new computer? Can only be sold with the computer. So if you get a new computer and then put linux on it, you are most likely still stuck with the license.
Here you go: Missing RIAA figures shoot down "piracy" canard, which is based in turn on RIAA's Statistics Don't Add Up to Piracy by George Ziemann
I submitted this very interesting piece yesterday but it was rejected.
The problem that we have here is twofold - we can't boycott buying CDs, because if we do, the RIAA will claim that the lack of sales is due to increased piracy, and we can't buy more CDs because the RIAA covers up their sales figures. The RIAA is continually getting stupider and stupider as time goes on. Soon they will be selling music on CDs that crash computers, blow speakers, ruin automobile decks, and automatically erase after 12 hours. I don't know what we can do anymore.
Rather they seem to be using this as an opportunity to intimidate alternative outlets and spread their unique interpretation fo the truth. I always find it amusing that they continue to blame various forms of piracy for the decline of sales, even in light of continuing revelations to the contrary. Of course, the sad thing is that the report just regurgitate the alleged facts.
The RIAA is probably most concerned about lack of control. They went through a lot of trouble insuring that they had control over the record stores. They have lost some of that control though discounters, but managed to minimize the loss through marketing deals. This is just another symptom of their compulsive control behavior. It is impossible to control all these little outlets, and therefor their price fixing policies will not be as effective.
Clearly, the media is not going to fix this. The congress is not going to fix this. I encourage everyone to go out into their communities and find independent music. Buy tickets to local concerts at local venues. Buy the CDs. Do not copy the music. We will only create a new market if we are willing to support the new market.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Police. Or some form of law enforcement, anyway, if the owner refuses to comply with the law.
Playing CD's in your store is definitely considered public performance by the law, and you need a special license to play it. Even funeral homes that play copyrighted music that the families bring in at ceremonies are required to have that yearly license. The law is very clear on this and law enforcement will definitely go after it as copyright violation is criminal for some reason that I've never understood.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I think your local mom and pop have an excellent opportunity to provide entertainment to their customers, while at the same time supporting musicians who are not under the thumb of an RIAA member's oppressive contract scheme.
;)
Tell the people who run Geraldi's - as well as the owners of other local stores - to get into the local music scene in your city, and to buy the CDs of unsigned local musicians. Tell them to talk with the musicians and get their approval and blessing to play their music in those local stores and restaurants.
It's free publicity for the musicians, especially if the merchants put up a sign indicating what CDs they are playing that day (and how to get your own/where to go to listen to a live show), and the merchants provide an interesting feature to attract more customers.
Then, when Hilary Rosen shows up at Geraldi's and says, I thought I told you to stop playing music here or pay our licensing fees, he can tell her to go fsck herself.
The same AP story was posted by Fox News.. piracy.ap/index.html
CNN wasn't wrong, the AP was. Given, CNN didn't recheck the facts, but unless the original article was done by a CNN reporter who is a member of the AP, then it's not quite the same.
Fox link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,73219,00.html
CNN link: http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Music/12/17/music
0x0D 0x0A
Shhhh... They'll hear you!
Does anyone have a clue what the RIAA thinks about barter and swap? I can't seem to find much on this topic.
How to Download YouTube Videos
even if they were...it doesnt make the resale of the cd any less legitimate. the only illegal act is the ripping.
I disagree. People might have heard the acronymn "RIAA" but I bet they don't really understand who they are and what they do. Just because people know it doesn't mean that they know.
How to Download YouTube Videos
What do customs do if they search luggage and find CDs and/or DVDs that look (to them) counterfeit, such as the passenger bought in China? I'm talking no more than one of each title, ie clearly for personal consumption. If the passenger bought them in good faith (difficult to prove otherwise), unless they are very obviously fake, is the passenger allowed to keep them?
If you can simply go to the local library and borrow a cd what is to stop you from ripping it. And since all customers are pirates, the only logical conclusion is to sue those libraries.
Oh, wait, we had better call the MPAA because I just found out you can get the books that some movies are based on, then you can take them home and type them into Word and print them out. Maybe they should sue MS for creating a software program that can be used to copy copyrighted material.
I'm glad we have some responsibe organizations looking out for our interests.
You can't take the sky from me
They certainly do. I worked with applications records once, and the SSN is certainly in there. It's not mandatory - people can choose to not give it, although I don't know if we advertised this. We had lots of international applications which didn't have SSNs. We would just make up a number for these people, and for anyone in the US that didn't want to give out their SSN.
Note that you have to give out your SSN when applying for federal student aid, but that's usually a separate thing....
The RIAA and MPAA could make a fortune just walking down the streets of downtown Manhattan. Every block has someone selling first-run movies on video and the latest, "hot" CDs on a card table. This would keep them busy for a long, long time.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I like how riaa links the drop in sales to pirating , but they never bring up the fact that the price of new CD's is now closing in on $20. Economics 101 says that when the price increases sales should fall. Could this be the real reason for the drop ion sales?
[Elvis Costello m]akes Brittany Spears seem like Mozart.
I knew Mozart. I worked in the Senaye with Mozart. Brittany, you're no Wolfgang Amadeus mozart!
--
And I'm no Lloyd Bentsen, but you get the idea.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
When I was in Moscow three years ago I bought the complete works of R.E.M. and Brian Eno in MP3 format for 3 dollars each from a street vendor. I could have also bought Windows ME (except I have better taste than that) and hundreds of other titles for the same price. Mom and Pop, gas stations and the dude with the duffle bag selling pirated music at the bus stops in Richmond, VA (where i'm currently located) have nothing compared to the overseas countfeiters.
Car makes to sue all used car dealerships.
And, I just can't wait until the day I have to pay royalties for a cd that I have already purchased.
Good thing parroting disinformation never happens here.
Don't get me wrong, I can't stand lazy journalists. Some simply copy press releases into their stories. It is galling when you catch them at it. As soon as you have some expertise in an area, or even read enough, news that previously looked credible falls apart.
That's a reason to be very distrustful of reporting on legal proceedings. It is so easy to blow the details, especially if you're being lobbied by one side or the other and not trying to hard in the first place. Making deadline becomes everything.
There are some great reporters, learn their names, follow them if they change employment. Linda Greenhouse at the Times is a superb legal reporter, and a very good writer for everyone. Here is her 12/11/02 report on a free speech and cross burning case (this has more in common with the DMCA than you might think!).
Disclaimer: I don't know more about this than what's in the article, but in my (shitty) neighborhood, there are tons of stores and gas stations that sell *blatently* riped off CD's and tapes (i.e.: you can see the dots of the dot-matrix printer used to make the CD cover). Hell, there's even an entire store a few blocks away that *only* sells copies.
I don't believe this has anything to do with mp3s, or the DMCA.
_______
2B1ASK1
Counterfeit CDs sold across the United States cost music companies $300 million a year, the RIAA said. The numbers are increasing as the equipment to make counterfeit copies becomes cheaper and smaller, according to industry statistics.
"This new initiative should serve as a clarion call for retail outlets of all shapes and sizes that we take music piracy seriously, and they need to get their house in order," said Hilary Rosen, the association's chief executive officer. "No one should think they operate below the radar anymore."
Where the hell did they get that 300,000,000 from? Did they send a knowlegable person into a reasonable statistical sampling of the world's gasoline stations, compile lists of pirated songs, and present the evidence? Or did Hilary stop into a gas station on the way back from Vegas and notice a bunch of CDs she could not recognize? Sorry, I don't buy the number or RIAA's ability to distinguish between a legitimate CD, from India for example, and a "pirate."
This does bode poorly for anyone trying to make their way without RIAA help. They are a racket that follows anticompetive practices such as RIAA only shops, payola and all that.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If it was, to offer a refund is quite generous. Generally, they have no obligation to offer a refund, open box or closed, unless they are at fault. Merchants are more leery of open box returns for obvious reasons -- fraud and difficulty reselling the item. Defective media, that's different, but even there your beef is with the manufacturer: the merchant is not necessarily required to act as go-between. Custom is that many or most companies do state exchange/refund policies more generous than their minimum commercial code obligations, and that's a reason we prefer them.
Either way, the DMCA is a silly excuse. I assume the cause was ignorance.
On the news today, the US Govt is now leafletting Iraq and playing popular Arabic music along with "news" as part of its propoganda campaign against Saddam Hussein.
What I want to know is if the military or the government is paying the proper royalties to the rights holders of that music, and if they even got permission to broadcast it.
Where can I report them for IP violations? WIPO?
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
A lot of music stores near me, in predominantly Black neighborhoods, advertise that they sell "mix tapes". When I've been in NYC, I've seen mix tapes to be basically illegally recorded "greatest hits" from various artists, usually the popular songs of the day. These have always seemed fairly illegal to me.
I wonder if the RIAA is going to go after these people, and if this is going to raise an uproar in the Black community; these tapes seem to be part of the culture.
Is it just that most people here probably grew (or are in the process of growing) up under the gentle shadow of the RIAA, but no one seems to have noticed the *glaring* highlighting error in the editorial sentence "With the way the RIAA and some artists *cough*Garth Brooks*cough* have labeled..."
Do I need to cough it up for you? For RIAA's sake...!
With the way the RIAA and some *cough*artists*cough* Garth Brooks have labeled these..."
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
And in other news today, Gun makers are responsible for homocidal maniacs, car makers for alcoholics and Everquest for antisocial suicidal people who lock themselves in their rooms, play for 48 hours strait then kill themselves. Wow! The music world will be safe after all...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
After all, the store owner purchased the music without intent to distribute and is using it for private purposes.
Huh? If he felt the need to post a sign and an apology to let people know why there was no music, I think the case can be made that his intent was for public exhibition, not private.
Now if he had a boom box, but the volume was turned down and the device situated that realistically only he could really enjoy the music, that'd be another thing entirely. It's the intent that matters here.
I'm not saying I like it, but them's the facts.
while i like to bash cnn, if you read the bottom of the article it looks something like this:
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
while cnn chose to print it, the majority of the blame falls on the ap in my opinion.
-- john
Electronic Boutique is pretty cool about it. I bought a couple games there last month, and they said I could return them for any reason within two weeks. Exchange for anything else in the store, no problem. It could be that they recognize me by now, I do spend a certain amount there every year.
But I also checked their website, and they'll accept returns on anything within 30 days.
Not all merchants distrust their customers.
...they imposed a similar requirement on pawn shops, that they get ID and I think even take a Polaroid. The reason of course was to make it harder for either thief or merchant to fence stolen goods. There was some controversy because of the expense, and I'm sure someone had to have complained about privacy. It does seem intrusive, but so are the burglars that feed this thriving market. Good idea? Bad idea? I'd like to see more information first. Legal idea? I think so.
Who is "they"? I thought it was by local ordinance, the city of Chicago, maybe Cook County. You can find out from an affected merchant or City Hall. They *might* be online.
Oh hey, I'm right. Check for more news on this, especially challenges anyone has raised.
Anyway, extending a pawn shop reg to used DVD stores is not much of a stretch, so perhaps this is the City again. It sounds legal and reasonable under the City's police powers but, again, intrusive. Although the basic idea is OK, I imagine the fight would go to just how much information is collected. The details are critical. Don't forget to contact your aldermen and the mayor's office if you need to.
First, please give us your definition of fascist. I always hear left-wingers throw that about, but rarely do they know the definition. Hint: Even the most far right imbecile you can find doesn't qualify.
Second, that the US media is dominated by a left-wing ideology is a simple fact that most of them even acknowlege. When polls are done of major media outlet reporters, they almost unanimously (over 95%) agree with the left wing agenda, such as For abortion, For gun control, Against the US military, etc. etc.
As an aside, I find it funny that the US version of right vs. left is almost completely opposite of the old USSR version.
>Fox News is right wing propaganda brought to you by facist and sleazemonger, Rupert Murdoch. The idea that any of the corporate media are left wing is absurd.
The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!
Before someone goes off-topic into strange theories of international law and jurisdiction, there are several international conventions to which Russia is a signatory thus at least on paper they do agree to enforce reciprocal protections. Both you and the vendor may have broken Russian law. I know Russia has much more dire threats.
Note that by signing on to those conventions, the countries consent to participation. This is a different matter from jurisdiction when you commit a crime abroad. For purchasing those CD's, your being an American would be beside the point; they'd be able to prosecute you. (Unless you are also a diplomat.)
China is the most notorious example of a country disregarding international copyright and pissing off the U.S., the source of so much of the material. And I can see why: they are a poor country with more to gain than lose by ignoring copyright. China purports to be mending its ways as participation in int'l trade becomes ever more important to it.
To add to this advice: remember that the ASCAP and BMI licenses are in principle for the songwriters, not the performers. You'll have to be very careful not to play anything that's even remotely close to a cover of a copyrighted song.
Apart from that, it's a civil matter. (Standard IANAL disclaimer applies, though...)
Money talks, but only when people are aware of what's going on. True, anyone who's shopped at sears or radio shack is well aware of the harvesting of personal info.
Still, this sounds like a potential buisness opportunity. Providing valid fake apartment numbers and valid fake telephone numbers via extentions.
"don't want those 'special offers' from local retailers? fed up with fliers being delivered to your home address? Valid Fake Address makes sure you never have to give out your home phone of apartment number again... Our low introductry subscription rate is only $1.99 a month!"
Slashdot users wishing to franchise a local VFA business can contact me on aim just add 21 to the end of my slashdot id for franchise/pricing information.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
You're giving her too much credit.
Here's a thought:
People should e-mail CNN or Associated Press about their shoddy article and let them know we prefer reading news reports from people who can regurgitate press releases accurately?
-- Askari: Give JavaScript the bird.
If someone wants your SSN but has no reason under God and Man to get it, just give it to him with the first digit changed to 8. No SSNs in the 800 range have ever been assigned.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
All our local CD stores (.au) do exactly that. Because they are so stealable, the take details from the seller and then quarantine them for a week before putting them on the shelves. A resonable number of stolen CDs are recovered this way and the thieves identified.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
... but isn't the RIAA going a little far by attacking their customers? Worse still, they're now going after their retailers.
You know, if I were a child, and I attacked the people who bring me food and stuff? They'd say I was throwing a tantrum. (let's not pick the comparison apart... I know it's a bit weak)
But these people are utterly destroying their own business model. Soon, I predict, they will be appealing to congress to have everyone's pay taxed for entertainment based on annual income. This way, they will be compensated fairly for entertaining us as surely everyone knows that we entertain ourselves with CD music proportionate to our income level. And of course additional law will have to be written to jail those who listen to more music than their income levels allow... we can't have that now can we. What kind of society would we live in where people listen to music all the time? For free? What is this? Soviet Russia?!
Someone write a law and save our dying nation!!!!
(This bit of melodrama was brought to you today by the letters R and A and the number 9.)
You're like THE person to get this right. Here the 4-paragraph CNN article has the word "illegal" like 75 times in connection with these counterfeit CD's and no one sees it? This is plain vanilla law enforcement -- at the behest of the industry, but that's nothing new. Manufacturers push for raids on counterfeit items ranging from handbags to blue jeans to perfume to....
The other point you make implicitly is that what these retailer are doing is also fraud to the buyer, if the buyer is unaware he's not getting the real thing. If the buyer does know it's bootleg, he's hosed. Here the RIAA is doing something that benefits the honest consumer, albeit indirectly.
Oh yes, everyone rally in favor of mom'n'pop fraud stores?
You deserve a couple dozen more ++ points. I'd give you mine if I could.
It would be really tough to show that the sandwich shop receives a financial benefit from playing music there. It's not just a matter of atmosphere, either - you'd have to show that with free or library music they would not receive the same financial benefit.
-T
where in the article does it say ANYTHING about stores that sell -used- cd's?
I hate the riaa as much as the next geek, but this is not what the article is referring to at all. they're talking about actual pirating and not 'right of first sale' issues.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
See, we have this little thing in the U.S. called innocent until proven guilty (granted, its becoming less and less so nowadays). Until you can prove that every single person who sells a CD to a used CD shop is in fact pirating it, then your argument holds no ground.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
I'm not sure what you mean? The AP is just another conduit of news, and a prolific one with unusual weight in smaller newspapers.
If you mean bylines, AP has provided them since about WWII. Subscribers can omit the byline at will. The author was Mark Sherman.
so if I create a .jpg of 421 cd burners and burn that to a cd-r, does that mean I'm in exponential violation of something or other?
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
My favorite part of this whole sordid mess is the response from RIAA's Senior VP of Communication, Amy Weiss: "Perhaps the truth is less interesting than the facts." I mean, WTF?!
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
eeww! that's worse than goat-sex!
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I hear all this talk of boycotting them, and how they are strangling the industry, etc etc.
I would like to present an option, or rather How I Fight The System.
I run my own label. Its a small affair, using the best quality packaging, and CDr with thermal printing for a slick look, use professional quality audio mastering, and work with underground electronic/industrial artists to promote, and distribute their music. All legal, and copyrighted by the artist, I don't "own" the artist like the big labels, its more a partnership. I went with a "supply on demand" model to lessen my financial risk, and am just going out and doing it myself. Screw the big guys, there is tons of good music out there, for cheaper than the bloated greedy recording industry would like you to beleieve that they can be had for! I'm not the only one either, there are a few of us out there..
Syncromesh Audio is where to find it. I run an internet radio stream as well, featuring mostly small label, or independant electronic/industrial/goth artists, and very little of the big guys generic and hook filled crap.
You want to stick it to the man? Then support the options. There is some really good music out there, and we don't have billions for marketing to promote it.
Yeah, so there.
Gee. This SURE won't encourage anyone to download their music instead of getting fingered every time they buy it.
I do security
"1)Open a CD Shop.
2)Sell the original with a copy CD with the tracks in mp3/ogg/whatever as a backup/digital medium copy.
3)Shovel millions to lawyers.
4)Counter sue for violating fair use.
5)After losing every court battle give up and bitch about it on slashdot."
The all important step 6
6)Profit
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
Perhaps the 35,000 illegally copied music disks was actually 20000, but quite a few of them were Britney Spears and Eminem disks, so they are "effectively" 2 disks each, unlike the Garth Brooks disks, which are only effectively .65 disks.
Cheers,
Backov
In the law there is no overlap between theft and copyright infringement whatsoever.
A lot of bands have switched to manufacturing EP's via cdr and saving the presses for the full length release. I hope that legitimate CD-R releases aren't being counted as piracy in these raids.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
Tell them to set up a simple, cheap, 2-speaker audio system and then they can play all the CDs they want. Others have already pointed out that ASCAP and BMI handle the licneses for this, not the RIAA but no one has mentioned that it is legal to play audio CDs over a low quality audio system for the purpose of entertainment. THe minute you place a high-quality audio system in the restaraunt it is considered public performance and you the restaraunt or store owner will need to purchase a license from ASCAP and/or BMI to do so. And before anyone asks, yes people do go around to the hundreds of thousands of restaraunts and stores across America checking up on this stuff.
To find out they were really going after the "mom and pop" record stores, after Lars made such a big deal about MP3s being the killer of the "mom and pop" record stores. I wonder if they even know whose side they are on...
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
In a way, what we are seeing here is gratifying. It's pretty clear that the RIAA has completely abandoned all pretense of being the good guys. Notice that they've even lightened up on the "protecting artists" blather lately? They know nobody buys that crap anymore. The RIAA has entered the thrashing, raving, foaming at the mouth stage, where they don't care how ugly they are or who sees it.
The RIAA is a doomed vampire that knows it is about to turn into dust and blow away. It is frantically looking around for any exposed vein it can still suck before the sun comes up.
Nice.
The same Rupert Murdoch who donated $50k to the Gore campaign? What're the odds a real conservative would ever have done that? It's more likely that you're off your meds again. From the article:
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Hi Hillary! Hi! The drunks are going to take you in the back room and beat your head with a 40 Oz. 'till the white meat shows! Hi!!
When i was in college, there was a CD store in nearby Northampton that sold bootlegged recordings of live shows. Most of these were legit, since the bands were ones that allowed it (Grateful Dead, Phish, etc). But I recall that there was a big commotion about Dave Matthews Band, which was the most popular college music at the time (circa 1996), coming down with a stampede of lawyers and hunting out indie record stores selling bootlegged live DMB recordings.
This isn't a commentary on whether it's right or wrong, just that record companies and artists have cracked down on retailers before, and they'll probably do it again.
PS: For years, music stores that sold used CDs weren't given any promotional material from the recording companies (even if the store sold new ones as well) because obviously used CD sales don't help the companies any. But this must have changed, as the big New England chain Newbury Comics is indeed selling used CDs...
"First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."
Just wait til you can't have the TV on in the background either, without paying a royalty ("in case people come in and watch a movie without paying"). It's a very short step from CDs and radio to any sort of media at all.
Hmm. Anyone know how the situation is handled with "sports bars"?? Do they need to pay a fee for each TV they have displaying Monday Night Football or ESPN??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I looked around a little more and found a typically misleading page about store refunds. At first it sounds like what I first said. Then at the *very* bottom they bury the warranty of merchantability -- here Gerogia's rule.
I don't know what state you live in AND DON'T TELL ME! If you burn with curiosity pull up your AG's site or check with in-state consumer protectiion agencies. Don't forget to check for local ordinances, too.
(As a practical matter few merchants will know all this stuff; as you discover the key is to be annoying anough that they pay you to go away.)
What I should have done is throw in the traditional YMMV and run like heck.
[runs like heck]
I used to live in a town with some really good used CD stores. 99.9 % of the used CDs were legit CDs, but you could find rare bootlegs on CD from time to time. These were pressed CDs, not stupid CD-Rs with a cover printed out on an ink-jet printer, and I think they were probably imported at some point before they wound up in the used CD stores.
Think about the RIAA throwing a big stink over these CDs enough to get some type of settlement out of the stores even though the biggest bulk of the material was totally *legit*.
Given the state of the market for everything, something like this could force mom & pop stores to close, which is exactly what the RIAA wants.
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
I do not only have animosity for Fox. I admit that stations like CNN are slightly liberally biased. However, 3 points:-
1) You never hear people saying 'Go watch CNN. They're more fair and balanced than Fox'. It's always the other way round.
2) I don't think they're ANYTHING LIKE as liberally biased as Fox is conservatively biased.
3) CNN et al don't constantly make the ludicrous, bold statement that they are 'the network America trusts for fair and balanced news'. They are what they are.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Now the RIAA will provide us with EULA's, since they are the only way I can think of to prevent me (legally) from re-selling a cd which is not a pirated copy, nor a demo "not-for-distribution" disc.
I think the RIAA needs to take a step back from the glue machine, as the fumes are obviously affecting them. You idiots EXIST to provide us with entertainment, that's what we pay you for... not to be called thieves and have even the most basic of property rights twisted and abused to the point where our founding fathers would run screaming in terror. The people who run the RIAA are EVIL "tin-plated dictators with delusions of godhood" (fair-use quote, *ptttb*), and their monopolistic hold over the recording industry needs to be broken.
Cool. My local pizza joint always plays the most annoying radio station on ceiling loudspeaker (hence specifically designed for entertaining the patrons).
The crap they play is cheezy music with a ton of ads between each song and an idiotic DJ who is always bordering on drowning in his own drool. So could you please point me to the law stating the restaurant has to fork $265 to play that drivel? I'd gleefully show it to them. If this could stop them from playing this audible excrement, it would do patrons a great favor!
Yeah, I know, I should go to another place. There is another pizza parlor in my bustling 300-trailer metropolis, but it's a mile away and the two servers always makes passes at customers. And they licks the tomato sauce off each other's fingers while they fix the pizzas. So I'll stick with the clean one.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.consortiumnews.com/
http://www.villagevoice.com/
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
You have to dig to find this stuff. If the "liberal media" that talk radio ranted and raved about were real, the stories found on the above links would be the mainstream news. Some reporters fresh out of college may hold liberal views, but their bosses, greedy corporate types, are very right wing, and talk radio, a big part of the corporate media, spouts their views. So does Fox News.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
No one ever said Murdoch was stupid. If he was, he would have helped W. Gore would have been good for his business. Fax news would have savaged him every day, and the same people who eat up talk radio would love it.
How ya like dat?
I'll give that a 4 out of 10 on the troll-o-meter. It will piss a few people off, but not many.
How ya like dat?