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How to Legally Infuriate the RIAA?
An anonymous reader shot us off a link to an article discussing how to use the RIAA's System to Broadcast Music Legally. Now, I'm no lawyer, but if the facts are correct in this article, we're talking about a price point that makes streaming radio extremely inexpensive. There's a lot of worthless spite in this article, but if you can look past that, you might see something worth thinking about.
So if I understand this correctly, music will be streamed to "cache sites" which will than be available for streaming to end users and the cache sites will pay the use fee. IANAL but that places the cache sites in the same boat as file swappers today, distributing music without a license. What am I missing that makes this legal?
At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun.
Alan Greenspan
Additionally, this form of 'encrypted caching' is almost certainly reversable by the user without too much effort (you have a player that can play the stuff, right?) and would almost guarantee a legal battle.
I applaud the out-of-box thinking, but still think the only way to win is not to play. That, or just play indies I guess.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Can somebody come up with a practical idea that informs the public of the evils of RIAA and the true virtues and benefits of P2P and why RIAA must be stopped in their campaign to destroy the technology.
It would be more constructive if someone devised a new model that would allow both immediate distribution of music, like P2P provides, and the artists to be paid as well.
The core problem with the RIAA is not really that they are greedy and heavy-handed, the real problem is that they are the promoter of a dying kind of business, that of distributing music on a physical media. Their entire model is based on 1 medium == 1 copy of the material on the CD. That model has been overturned by the internet, and they struggle like a drowning man to save the old system.
The reality is that the RIAA will disappear eventually, the only question is how much damage they will do before they die. The other question is this : it's all well and good that music can be distributed digitally, and that the RIAA is on the go, but nobody has come up with a good distribution model that would allow the artists to be paid without the RIAA. As long as someone doesn't find a solution to that problem, the RIAA will continue to survive, annoy the living hell out of everybody, listeners and artists alike, and P2P users will continue to be thieves (yes they are, for most artists).
The key is a new distribution/paying scheme. There is some breakthrough to be done in that area. When people can download a piece of music immediately and the artist get paid the second later in a totally reliable, trustworthy and non-big-brotherish fashion, the middle-man RIAA will disappear naturally and in no time flat.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
This is the main reason why we are losing this battle. People like Charlie Demerjian, so vehemently oppose the [RI|MP]AA, their words and ideas are poisoned to the point it does nothing but turn off the casual reader and make us look like a pack of bloody savages.
While he may have a good point (donation to the EFF), this reads like a 17 year old who just got punished and is now lashing out at his/her parents.
We need THOROUGH research into ideas and solutions and then we can practice them. And believe me, when the solution which is right and true (as well as easy and quick) DOES come out, it will be accepted and adopted by all (references: Napster, KaZaa, et. al.).
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
Yeah, so which is it?
.07 = $350
.0007 = $3.50
20,000/4 *
-or-
20,000/4 *
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Obviously a rookie mistake
Sheesh, the article author doesn't understand the RIAA rules. Here they are in an easy to read format...
t ml
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/webcasting.h
His idea of tiny, one-song webcasters won't fly. However, the idea could be modified to 100-song webcasters and you might make it work, for an end user cost of about 10 cents for the 100 songs.
Are there any regulations about what the definition of a "station" is? Or how long something can be cached?
Yes, there are lots of them.
My media player accesses this list, and also monitors a central server that recieves information from hundreds of different webcasters about their current and upcoming playlist.
You're not allowed to advertise your upcoming playlist. I believe there are also restrictions against devices which automatically switch between stations, but I don't remember exactly what they are.
If someone else starts to play a diffent song on my list while the first one is still playing, my media player will cache the second song and start it when the first one ends.
Unless you're going to argue that it's fair use, caching itself is copying, and requires a license.
The sad part of all this is that the RIAA seem to be working with a simple concept: "How to make more money for themselves".
And they are thereby perpetuating the vicious circle that is going on here. What happens is this:
1/ RIAA sees profits go down (heaven forbid they acknowledge that their products are discretionary buys, which are are always the first to decrease when the economy is in decline, like right now)
2/ RIAA does something (new) that gets them profit. Like raise CD prices. Or sue a few poor sods for $mucho (incidentally.. has any single artist EVER seen any of the money the RIAA made off this campaign so far?)
3/ People can't afford the music they want to listen to and look for other means.
And the consumer isnt the party that can break this cycle. Like the human will to live is pretty much ingrained, so is the determination to listen to music. I know for certain that if CD's would be (say) $10 or less (which is VERY viable given how much the entire CD process costs) I would buy a whole lot more of them.
Anyway to get a bit more on topic, I don't get this guy's scheme, he says we do the right thing i.e. pay for listening to music, how is it that we're infuriating the RIAA by paying them again?
Well, than it's back to what I've been saying for ages. Quit buying RIAA music, tell your friends, and ask they tell their friends. When RIAA members see their sales go down by even 30%, I suspect that they would start putting pressure on RIAA to tone it down.
Nah, they'll just blame the 30% decrease on P2P file sharing and legislate a tax on computer equipment to make up the difference.
Problem is they won't attribute the sales dropping to people not buying CD's they'll just say "Well, sales dropped another 30%, looks like more people are pirating CD's online then we thought, get our friends at Washington on the phone."
Thats the problem, no company ( or group of them in this case ) will admit to sales dropping because of customer dissatisfaction. They'll say its because of market trends, because of a recession or because of webcasting etc.
The RIAA isn't Evil in itself. Its just like two drowning men. One is causing the other to drown as he clambers up to the surface. One man dies as the other lives. It just depends which is stronger and which has the greater will to live.
You *do* realize that by coming out and saying that this illegal behaviour is an anticipated or "beneficial" outcome of the scheme you propose, you're making it all that much harder to defend it in court as legit?
Normally I don't respond to ACs, but this post was so short-sighted and off the mark, misses the point so completely, that I had to respond:
It doesn't matter what the minimum is. This is a monkeywrench job, not a license compliance issue. You don't even have to be actually streaming songs for it to work. (In fact I would be prone to say "This is my royalty payment for playing "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I've Got Love In My Tummy" by the Ohio Fruitgum Company at 9:58 AM on July 11, 2003 on streaming server " and then give them the IP address for one of AOL's proxy servers. When, of course, I had done no such thing.) You're trying to make their job more difficult, not facilitate or play along with them. That's what "monkeywrenching" means.
By hopefully thousands of people sending them checks for seven cents at a time:
- You force a human being to open every single one of them to find out what it is, which wastes the RIAA's time and money. Especially if your payments are of no use to them.
- You're making a point about their royalty system.
- If you're smart you get the press to cover this to get the RIAA issue in front of normal everyday sheep^H^H^H^H^Hpeople.
Even if you're a small webcaster who wants to comply with their licensing, you can still send them your royalty payments seven cents, or a dollar, at a time. Sure it will cost you money, but I'm sure opening over 28,000 envelopes from you will cost them even more. I'm reminded of a fellow who once showed up at an IRS office demanding to pay his taxes -- tens of thousands of dollars, if I remember right -- in nickels. At first the IRS wouln't take the payment, so he re-appeared with his lawyer who said yes indeed, they did have to take the payment. The story may be apocryphal, but the thought of the IRS having to count all those nickels -- just like the thought of the RIAA processing a blizzard of almost, but not quite worthless, checks -- amuses me.
Someone you trust is one of us.
However it seems that a playlist can be generated based on a user voting system (semi-generated for the user), as long as the resulting playlist conforms to the other rules (types of songs per hour, etc).
As I said, my post was a summary. It wasn't the exact rules. If you wait more than an hour before you play the request, and you don't let anyone know exactly when or what you're going to play until you play it, it might be legal. Of course at that point I'm not sure exactly what the incentive is to the person broadcasting the songs who has to pay the RIAA.
The author's original idea will have to be manipulated a bit, but it's still feasible in many ways. A bit of ingenuity can go a long ways.
I think once you've followed all the rules you'll find yourself with a radio station. Maybe a good radio station, run cheaply through volunteer DJs and volunteer bandwidth, but still just a radio station.
I have my doubts as to if the general idea could really fly in the current online world, however you never know until you try.
True, you never know until you try, but I don't think the potential benefits outweigh the difficulty of making the software. Of course, I'm not that big a fan of radio stations, even good radio stations. If I'm going to pay for digital music, I'll just use Rhapsody or something.
Problem with your argument chief:
/. articles, there has been loads of proof posted on this and I am too lazy to reproduce it here.
/. stopped buying albums, the RIAA would see a loss of about, Im guessing, less than 10% overall sales. This they could quickly blame on piracy, makes some apperances on local news broadcasts to drum up anti-piracy support and jack the prices even further. Joe six-pack will then blame the tech crowd for stealing usic and forcing him to pay an extra $5 on that new Creed CD he wants.
Most artists will continue to make money the way they do now, without the RIAA overhead: they will tour and sell band merchandise
This would be nice if it was true. Some artists, the Eminems and the JLos of the world make a lot of money touring, but most artists do not. Check the last couple days worth of
Boycotting could be an effective means of driving a point home, except that most people do not care. If every person on
Now a total boycott, that would hit them in the sack, but I don't have a clue how to get everybody to back it, and you need everybody, not just one demographic.
Where the blow needs to be struck, is by the artists themselves. We are not far from the day (if not there already) when an artist will be able to produce an album without a studio, and distribute it direct to fans via the web. No middle man. The RIAA's recent actions are especially going to encourage acts to start doing this. If the RIAA no longer controls the goods, then nobody is going to need to patronize them. They shirvel up like a slug caught out in the sun...
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
What exactly here is illegal? Going against the RIAA? If this player does indeed follow the law, how it is illegal then? Sure, it may not be *exactly* what the RIAA intended, but who cares? The law is the law.... unless you have the money to change it.... *look around*
Yeah, but if it is legal, you won't have to defend it, you can most likely get it thrown out. Remember, this is an excercise in obeying the letter of the law, not the spirit. The letter is what is enforced, much to the chagrin of people trying to do the right thing, but getting constantly screwed for it.
If you have a clever lawyer when setting something like this up, and you do your homework, you should be untouchable. Using the law to do wrong is a time honored tradition in the US, just look at our government. When was the last time you heard Bush say Enron, or Chaney say Haliburon?
-Charlie
I thought one of the major complaints about 99% of the radio stations was that they only play top 20 songs and don't give a chance to smaller bands. Hence, stations often get boring, annoying and lack variety while at the same time extinguishing any chance of a healthy competition. Everyone knows this is because of media conglomerates, their consolidation, and ultimately their "commercials" to sell more useless media (CDs) and pass more controlling laws in their favor. Now the author of the original article is proposing that this half-assed marketing plan be written into a "P2P-cast" (new term?) system. This is worse, not better, no matter how much RIAA gets. It's a lose-lose proposition for everyone.
This means RIAA gets upset about theft of their "IP", pressures congress into stricter legislation; public loses out from such legislation; public also loses out as only "top 20" content is available to them through most of the distribution channels. Smaller bands and real artists lose out as their creations get pushed out of market. It's a disaster!
I'd be much happier if webcasters started streaming more of non-RIAA material. People listen to webcasts at work; in the long run, it could be a better proposition for all parties involved other than RIAA.
I don't know what internet that guy is on, but here on Earth's internet, if you have 100k listeners to a song, you ain't a small broadcaster!
For a more realistic look at the small broadcaster, go take a look at Live365. A plan with 100 simultaneous listeners for your station (way more realistic than 100k listeners) starts at $8/month, and that includes the royalties.
Neither my sources for MP3s, nor myself personally, are worried about the RIAA, and there is a pretty basic reason why.
As background, I like alot of different types of music. And I have legally downloaded, for free, gigs of songs.
It's quite simple...
Many bands allow/encourage taping of the live shows. Why? They know that these recording will be passed around (via mp3, shn, soundboard>dat>CD, etc). This keeps the existing fans happy, and increases the chance that "not-yet fans" will hear the music. This leads to greater album/concert/concession sales.
Some of the more obvious examples of bands that allow this would be: The Grateful Dead, Phish, Moe., and Widespread Panic.
Other artists that I have downloaded full live shows of include: Herb Alpert, Louis Armstrong, and The Flaming Lips
Other artists allow for the MP3 release of particular (studio-version) songs for free on music-centered sites and/or their own websites.
3 songs in particular come to mind.
1) Lovertits by Peaches - No idea who this was until I found this song awhile ago. Now, I consider myself a fan.
2) Nuclear War by Yo La Tengo - I had heard of them, and heard a song or two by them, but I didn't particularly care one way or the other. Then, I downloaded this song. Hearing this song, in conjunction with what I already had heard, has given me a greater appreciation for what this band does. Now, I am more inclined to listen to them again, and (OMG!) actually buy an album.
3) Fudgy the Whale by Dub Narcotic Sound System - A band that I had no clue existed. Then I heard this song. Its just plain cool. Definitely on my radar.
Even the MySQL guy that sits 3 cubes away from me has heard these songs now (Fridays after lunch can get a little loud in our office). He may or may not like them himself, but he has at least heard them, and this would not have been the case without the existence of the released MP3s.
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The above long-winded post is merely an attempt to point out the fact that legal mp3s ARE available, and the fact that releasing them does benefit the artist.
It's funny. I haven't bought the new Metallica. But I did buy Peaches. I wonder if there is a correlation?
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IMHO - One site that is particularly worthy of being slahdotted on a daily basis: www.epitonic.com
He suggests a genius programmer and Justin Frankel in the same breath? Justin is the Ringo Starr of the Internet. A person of middling skill who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. He wrote a mediocre program (that continues to be mediocre to this day) that just happened to gain a large user base in a time when Internet companies equated users to actual dollars. He cashed in when he had the chance and made out like a bandit. That gave him the opportunity to kick back and do whatever programming he wanted. Hence, further mediocrity such as Gnutella, a fatally flawed P2P program that doesn't scale, and served mainly as a political statement.
The fact that he never seemed to figure out why AOL didn't like his little side projects also doesn't say a lot for his chances of actually being a genius. Any moron can see why they were disturbed at his posting pirateware on websites owned by them. If he had half a brain, he would have spent 0.0001% of his fortune and put up a private web site for distributing his warez. If his contract with AOL didn't allow him to do so, then he's doubly lame for signing a contract that didn't allow private projects in his spare time.
No, what a project like the suggested Internet radio project requires is simply a seasoned, disciplined programmer with great skill. There are thousands of them out there. Doesn't have to be someone made famous by fooling a large corporation into buying a cheesy music application for untold amounts of money, and who crashes expensive cars and writes poor freeware in his spare time. Let somebody deserving make a name for themself with this project.
PS: I've worked directly with Justin in the past. I have to say, he was far from impressive. We were working on something rather basic, but he wouldn't/couldn't even spend the time to read the very simple specs to make it work, and required a bit of handholding. Kind of sad, really.