Bono (Not That Bono) Would Like To Head The RIAA

A semi-anonymous reader writes "In a suprising display of confusion over what 'public service' really means, Rep. Mary Bono wants to fill the shoes of departing RIAA chief exec Hillary Rosen while also forming a new congressional caucus on piracy and copyright issues. Political watchdog groups in Washington questioned the idea of someone being a possible job candidate for the music industry's lobby and also a founding member of a caucus focused on some of the industry's most important policy concerns. Has anyone formed a lobbying group specifically to advance the position of us little people?"

Comments

More important

[Dachannien]

...is whether she plans to resign at her old job (you know, being in the U.S. House of Representatives) before taking on a new one involving a rather obvious conflict of interest.

Re:More important

[RocketScientist]

I'm not really seeing much conflict here. The RIAA asks, and Congress gives. For this to be a conflict of interest, Congress would need to actually represent something other than the large corporations.

Lars feels left out

[haydenth]

Earlier today, when I saw "Bono to head RIAA" on the Drudge Report, I was shocked! But I didn't bother to RTFA. I always thought that Lars Ulrich from Metallica was next in line.

Re:Lars feels left out

[spike it]

Lars Ulrich was anti-napster only because unfinished songs were being leaked to the server. If I was in a band, I wouldn't appreciate my work in progress to be available to the entire world.

Re:Lars feels left out

[macdaddy357]

How do you think I Dissapear got leaked while they were still in the studio? The label did it to create a buzz around the song for the Mission Impossible soundtrack, and they sold a lot more copies of that soundtrack. Lars is a fargin bastidge!

Could it be worse?

[uncoveror]

Mary Bono as head of the RIAA? Consider that she is the widow of Sonny Bono, who wanted to make copyright perpetual, after whom the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension act was posthumously named. She would likely go out of her way to kill off fair use and the public domain forever, the first sale principle is probably in her crosshairs too. Could there possibly be a worse person for the job? We could soon find ourselves missing Hilary Rosen. Boycott the recording industry. Don't buy CDs.

More about these issues.

Re:Could it be worse?

[Dark Nexus]

Don't buy CDs? That's just DUMB. Buy CDs, but don't buy any from the major labels. Track down the independants who sell CDs off their websites and out of guitar cases when they play a bar.

Support the artists, not the industry.

But don't buy CDs? That's like saying to not pay for software (be it shareware, off the shelf or oss through donations) because of Microsoft.

Re:Could it be worse?

[rw2]

That's right, and start with this guy.

Ultraman is Airwolf

Re:Could it be worse?

[stefanlasiewski]

Track down the independants who sell CDs off their websites

Great idea, but this won't always work. Many independants who sell CDs off their websites distribute their CD through a label who is an RIAA member.

What I want is a list of music organizations and labels who aren't members of the RIAA.

Anyone know of such a resource?

Re:Could it be worse?

[Dark Nexus]

One tipoff is generally price. $10 and there PROBABLY isn't a major label involved. $20, there is. $15 could go either way.

Another option would be to use sites like Indie Pool, who sell indie music (that one's only Canadian stuff, but there's bound to be sites like that for pretty much any area), and Indie Music which lists the websites of independant artists and labels.

Or just buy the CDs directly from the band, after a show. When's the last time you saw someone from a major label doing that?

Re:Could it be worse?

[Metasquares]

Someone here posted a link to a site called RIAA Radar a while back in some other RIAA-related article. I don't know how complete the list is (It's technically not even a list, though I imagine you could browse it if you're really interested), but it's pretty useful when looking to buy CDs while boycotting the RIAA.

Re:Could it be worse?

[Catnapster]

Do you mean selling CDs at concerts? I know for a fact Blindside does. Eleven bucks for the CD - should have bought it.

This women needs to be defeated.

[saden1]

I'd like to run against here but I'm gonna need about 2 million dollars to run a campaign. You slashdotters need to put your money where your mouth is and give me someone money to beat this lady and send here packing. If you need further info as to where to send money to you can email me at mylifesavings@swissaccounts.com or conman@nigiria.419.com. This matter is strictly of confidential nature as such must be kept secret.

Re:This women needs to be defeated.

[HopeUnknown]

Saden1,

MY NAME IS AKBAR EL MOSAQ and I need your assistance in transporting 10,000,000 (US 10 MILLION) to offshore accounts GOD permitting. I shall pay you the MONEYS of 2 million if you can assist me in this endeavor. I await your reply, AKBAR

Doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone formed a lobbying group specifically to advance the position of us little people?

It doesn't matter. Such a group would be (at best) marginalized and ignored, or (at worst) brutally repressed.

Here's Noam Chomsky:

They had their own newspapers. In fact, the period of the freest press in the United States was probably around the 1850s. In the 1850s, the scale of the popular press, meaning run by the factory girls in Lowell and so on, was on the scale of the commercial press or even greater. These were independent newspapers -- a lot of interesting scholarship on them, if you can read them now. They [arose] spontaneously, without any background. [The writers had] never heard of Marx or Bakunin or anyone else; they developed the same ideas. From their point of view, what they called "wage slavery," renting yourself to an owner, was not very different from the chattel slavery that they were fighting a civil war about. You have to recall that in the mid-nineteenth century, that was a common view in the United States -- for example, the position of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln's position. It's not an odd view, that there isn't much difference between selling yourself and renting yourself. So the idea of renting yourself, meaning working for wages, was degrading. It was an attack on your personal integrity. They despised the industrial system that was developing, that was destroying their culture, destroying their independence, their individuality, constraining them to be subordinate to masters.

There was a tradition of what was called Republicanism in the United States. We're free people, you know, the first free people in the world. This was destroying and undermining that freedom. This was the core of the labor movement all over, and included in it was the assumption, just taken for granted, that "those who work in the mills should own them." In fact, one of the their main slogans, I'll just quote it, was they condemned what they called the "new spirit of the age: gain wealth, forgetting all but self." That new spirit, that you should only be interested in gaining wealth and forgetting about your relations to other people, they regarded it as a violation of fundamental human nature, and a degrading idea.

That was a strong, rich American culture, which was crushed by violence. The United States has a very violent labor history, much more so than Europe. It was wiped out over a long period, with extreme violence. By the time it picked up again in the 1930s, that's when I personally came into the tail end of it. After the Second World War it was crushed. By now, it's forgotten. But it's very real. I don't really think it's forgotten, I think it's just below the surface in people's consciousness.

Lobbying groups

[eXtro]

There are a lot of lobbying groups that advance the position of us little people. Bent over and grabbing our ankles is a positing, right?

ummm...

[dh003i]

What makes you think Hillary Rosen was any better? According to you, Hillary Rosen didn't want to eliminate fair use and make copyright perpetua?

Re:ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary never managed to get any major laws passed that I'm aware of. This chick is worse. She'll use her dead husband to help further the RIAA's agenda. She's a congresscritter, which lends clout and credibility in some circles. This is bad.

Re:ummm...

[dh003i]

That's because Hillary Rosen was not a Congresswoman. Btw, who the fuck do you think was bribing congress to get the DMCA and Mickey Mouse Act passed? Hillary Rosen and Jack Valenti.

Re:Yeah right

[StillDocked]

Well, yes. There are a number of advocacy groups that work for everyone's benefit.

For instance, the ACLU, or more to the /.'s heart, the EFF.

They lobby on the behalf on us (read: the little guys and girls in geek land) and work to protect the rights that are being grabbed from us.

apologies to any actual midgets

[Mad Marlin]

Has anyone formed a lobbying group specifically to advance the position of us little people?

I'm not little, I'm 6'4", and I don't see why DC needs a midget special interest group.

Can you spell payoff?

[www.sorehands.com]

It sounds like Bono is being paid off for her getting the Bono copyright extension act passed.
How many of you out there are wondering when the first talk of heading up the RIAA came up as related to the timeline of the Sony Bono Copyright Act?

Re:Can you spell payoff?

[HBI]

I am sure nothing of the sort was discussed until after Sonny died.

However, I am sure her acceptance speech will include a rendition of "I've Got You Babe", dedicated to the music buying public.

She's Just Wishing Out Loud

[hbo]

Per the article:

Replacing the departing chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America would be her "ideal job," spokeswoman Cindy Hartley said. She added that Bono, R-Calif., isn't actively pursuing the job and plans to run for re-election.

And the rest of the article goes on to quote groups raising eyebrows at a congress creature wanting to be a lobbyist.

I think Mary Bono is a threat right where she is. It's not smart, polite or useful to wish death on someone however. What we are up against is both an industry with lots of lobbying muscle, and a Government with a receptive ear, even forgetting the campaign cash. We need sustained, adroit and well-heeled lobbying of our own if we hope to counter these threats in a meaningful way. Threats and jeers just lose us credibility.

That's Amore

[AtariAmarok]

"The RIAA is dying, just like Sonny Bono when he hit that tree, and BSD"

When Sonny hits a tree, and he dies like BSD, that's RIAA.

If you have Metallica in your path, and you get Lars' wrath, that's RIAA

When you're kicked out of college, cuz of your drive Hillary gains knowledge, that's RIAA.

List of RIAA member labels

[CaptainTylor]

Well...it would be hard to track that, but here is a list of the labels that ARE members:

RIAA Members

(Yeah, I know, I'm such a karma whore.)

Another story about Rosen leaving

[ELCarlsson]

Here's a story from Forbes. My favorite is the last paragraph. Our only problem with Rosen was the RIAA going after Napster. Umm...sure.

Re:figures

[Moldy-Rutabaga]

It reminds me of an old expression. Replacing the head of the RIAA is like moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic. The internet is only ten years old, and we haven't begun to see its impact. I'm maybe more optimistic than most when I predict that at some point the RIAA is going to admit defeat. No industry has ever thrived--ever--by waging war against its customers. At some time the RIAA will accept that mp3s are simply a part of the scene just like radio is, and we won't care any longer who heads the organization. At least I hope this happens. Ken:>