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The RIAA Hit List - A Pattern Emerges?
Desus writes "Slyck News seems to have found a pattern in just what files the RIAA is searching on to find offenders. It seems the RIAA is targeting a wide reach of music, including Hip Hop, R&B, Rap, Rock, Pop and Country songs. Artists such as Ludacris, Michael Jackson, NAS, Busta Rhymes, Keith Sweat and Musiq were very common throughout the subpoenas. They've even created a helpful chart showing exactly what artists and songs seem to get one flagged." Update: 07/31 13:12 GMT by H : Here's another source for the chart.
So the big surprise is that the RIAA is going after people who illicitly share a wide selection of their songs. As opposed to only targeting those people who illicitly share Eminem and Madonna. How shocking.
Really, what is the point to this article?
Because I don't listen to them. Instead I steal music from unknown bands who don't make money off their music.
I'm so glad the RIAA is protecting the millionares and not the people who really suffer from piracy.
Didn't you figure it out yet? Not everybody has to like the same stuff you like. That's one of the good things about music; you can listen to what /you/ want!
Okay, I'm not Destiny's Child song but that doesn't mean I want to stop other people listening to it. You should really think about what you're saying. Take it to the next logical step: nobody should eat this, drink that, drive whichever car. Hey! Wow, guess what? Isn't that a dictatorship, pretty much?
What I find irritating is that the "number of times" field ought to be it's own column in the spreadsheet so you can actually sort the frigging list.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Hint: put only one type of data in each cell. When you mix data in a single cell, it makes it very hard to sort or analyze. For instance, this spreadsheet has two colums: "Artist" and "Song title (times appearing)".
Would it have been that hard to break out time appearing into another column, so interested people could actually *use* the data for something? No. In fact, it would have been *less* work.
Sorry to bitch and moan, but spreadsheet abuse is one of my pet peeves.
Cheers
-b
Didn't you figure it out yet? It's a fucking joke.
THe article claims that from 50 total subpoenas being checked, they can deduce overall proportions of artist representation in the subpoenas, which is, frankly, a load of crock; with a sample size that small, margin of error would be enormous. Oh, and by the way, it's not like the RIAA needs to limit itself to these artists of these songs, they just happen to be what they were searching for to trigger some results, and with the huge body of work protected by the RIAA, I imagine that if it were not for simple lack of motivation, they could easily cycle through an enormous number of searches to perform... Perhaps they'll do exactly this each time someone tries to analyze their "pattern"...
What's the matter, you can't import/convert it?
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
hmm, out of a miniscule sample size of 50, we found that a wide variety of types of music were being shared. Many popular songs were shared by many people, while some songs where only shared by a few. This roughly fits a bell curve distribution as would nomally be found in a random sample of shared files.
Therefore we conclude that the RIAA is targetting people with specific music sharring patterns.
yeah.
Ah, you just want to use the labor of someone who you consider to be a whore, so you can keep your pristine innocence. That's very noble.
Cheers
-b
If you haven't noticed, Rab/R&B/Hip-Hop is really popular with the disaffected suburban youth. Who have computers.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
What a stupid chart. If you're going to go through all the trouble of making an Excel spreadsheet why not create a proper spreadsheet and put the number of times a song was mentioned in its own column? See, now it's even more useful because I can sort by the number of times a song was mentioned to see what the most popular one was instead of having to scan the whole list manually. Simple, no?
And then you don't have to figure out if the number in brackets is actually the number of times it was mentioned or maybe makes up part of the title. If I was being pedantic and took the "Title (Times song appears)" column header to be gospel, then the Jay-Z song "I Just Wanna Love U" has been mentioned "Give It 2 Me" times, and the Ludacris song "Cry Babies" has been mentioned "Oh No" times. What is this? How many is "Oh No"?
Linking directly to an Excel spreadsheet *is* kind of lame.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
"Not everybody has to like the same stuff you like."
Very true, however, the original poster is *quite* correct here.
Have you seen the list?
Wham?
I'm beginning to think they really *are* herding us towards greener pastures.
--- What
I think we all feel like we need to fight back, right? Unfortunately, I can't really see how we can convince the gov't (or the RIAA for that matter) to agree to a business model built on P2P. So how bout we start a little smaller? How about we demand that the "open CDs cannot be returned" policy gets permanently lifted?
Think about the ramifications of this for a sec. You can go to a store, buy an Album, and return it if it sucks. It's not as cool as P2P, but at least the RIAA will suddenly have a fire lit under them to produce more of what people want. If they want to avoid returns, then they'll HAVE to consider selling singles and custom mixes. Heck, take it to an extreme, and they may develop a decent On-line service.
You all should think about that. I think the return policy would be an easier goal to attain than P2P. It's in the consumers' best interests anyway. I mean, how can an oligopoly legally use the "open your mouth and close your eyes" business model?
The one pattern I see is that the overwhelming number of the artists seem to be those that appeal to under 25's. Obviously the RIAA have decided to go for those who can least afford to offer legal resistance (school kids and college students).
Or maybe it just turns out that the file sharing demographic is disproportionally composed of young people... nah, you're right. They must be specifically targeting people who can't afford a lawyer.
-a
Ludacris, Michael Jackson, NAS, Busta Rhymes, Keith Sweat and Musiq
/. makes it needlessly difficult to add footnotes to my posts.
Black musicians, eh? Nothing new here. Led Zepplin, Elvis, and the Stones stole music from black musicians for years, making the RIAA companies plenty of money. Now the RIAA is mad that people are stealing music from the black musicians owned by the RIAA slavemasters (1). Turnabout is fair play, baby. Too bad, RIAA.
GF.
1. It is admittedly hard to characterize Jacko as oppressed (2), but the artists come and go weekly, and the fat cats (in the industry) seem to just keep getting fatter (3) (4) (5).
2. Despite his hilarious attempt to do so himself.
3. SNZ.
4. Until file sharing started raping their profits.
5. I feel obligated to use this space to bitch about the fact that, like Open Office (6),
6. http://www.openoffice.org/
Lots of petrified grits
Only on slashdot will you see people complaining about *anything*.
Those guys rummaged through the 911 subpoenas to compile a list on a spreadsheet, they let you download it for FREE, and not only did you show a token of appreciation, but you bitched about the formatting?
Would it have been that hard to break out time appearing into another column, so interested people could actually *use* the data for something? No. In fact, it would have been *less* work.
Interested people can compile their own list if they want.
Next thing you know, they'll have a version with actually splits that column into two, and we're gonna see people say stuff like "Why the FUCK would these idiots use a Sans Serif font? Everybody knows that a Serif font looks better on the monitor! Those insensitive CLODS!"
Yes it's mashed in the same column. Yes they used Arial. Yes they used a proprietary format by Big Bad Microsoft. Yes they weren't thoughtful enough to put in plain text so I can run your Perl scripts on it. Yes it's not encoded in ogg vorbis. Yes it won't play on your iPod or microwave. Yes they deserve to burn in hell for not making 2 million different versions catered for each person that downloads it.
No they don't! Thank them for spending the time to sift through all the subpoenas!
900+ people and the most popular download only kicked over 12 times? The RIAA lost how many $ on that? The aritsts lost how many 1/10000th of a cent over this? Am I reading this wrong, or is this who thing adding up to a big ZERO?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Why dont we setup fake servers serving files with names that match the file.
or setup p2p clients that will respond to all requests for these files with a spoofed address.
If we flood the network with false positives, when it comes to the lawsuit it comes out that some people accused were not actualy shareing any files, they would have to prove that they verified each and every one of their victims.
we could easily create blank files with the same time and size as the "real" files
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
Your not amazed, your just making a mistake. See, the internet as you know it consisting of a bunch of www adresses and p2p apps is just the result of what has been going on on networks long before your parents screwed to pop you out. Its called free exchange of thought.
Yes, I do agree with your point of it being a utopia of sorts, and thats exactly the point! When all those people you consider geeks and nerds were telling you this was going to change the world, they were right. The world is now changing, take a step back 20 years and think about how people would react if you told them that in 20 years most media(books,court records, music, etc) would be available to anyone, anywhere for FREE! This does have the potential to change the world, and it already has in many ways.
Dont fall for newsspeak so easily...example...it was called the .com bust, not the .org, .edu, .gov, bust. why? because commercialism is in reality(whatever that is) .com is a very small subset of the useful information available to you, unless your just replacing one phosphorous tube for another(TV -> PC)
War zone? hardly, just because your ignorance gets you in trouble doesnt mean it needs to be changed for everyone to satisfy your need for security. Networks were a lot more 'dangerous' as you like to call it, years ago than they are now. Cops and robbers, cat and mouse, call it what you will...but the more things change the more they stay the same. Most NOCenters were lucky to have one person to maintain and police their subnets...now every jackass that can write a C+ script gets a job to watch over the traffic on subnets. that to me is more dangerous than whatever it is you think is so threatening about the internet.
At some point you are going to have to realize that nobody cares what you think everyone needs to realize.
It's one thing if you want to bash Microsoft. This is slashdot, most everyone does.
Saying Excel is a bad program, or that it's incapable of manipulating data efficiently, is idiotic. If you think Gnumeric or any of the other Linux spreadsheets are any better, you're fooling yourself.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Hi!
One of the reasons the RIAA is targeting a specific group of files (in addition to target market, etc.) is that the RIAA is acting, legally, as the agent of the copyright owner. The RIAA doesn't own the copyrights to the music--generally, neither do the record labels. The "artists" (using the term very broadly in a few cases) own the copyrights, and the RIAA is acting on their behalf. They're looking for U2 files because U2 has given them permission to haul kids into court on a trumped-up infringement action.
Which might give you pause, next time you're in the record store looking to buy a CD.
Which brings me to an interesting idea:
If you see the name of an artist you admire--and perhaps support with your hard-earned dollar--why not drop an email to the artist asking why he or she is supporting the draconian actions of the RIAA? As always, it pays to be polite--screamers just get ignored (or reinforce the "they're all crooks" attitudes). But a few hundred polite, irenic notes might just change a few attitudes.
And a few hundred thousand polite irenic notes might just drum some sense into the musicians.
They're going after the most popularly downloaded music which happens to be listened to by mostly young people. If old people music was being downloaded more often than young people music and they were still going after us youngins, then you might have a valid point.
So, do us youngins a favor and get your old folk together to start mass downloading your old people music to distract the RIAA from us.
Thanks,
Ben
Work Safe Porn
"How much of this sh!t are we going to put up with before people start throwing around the 'b' word? That's right, I said it. BOYCOTT. Any takers?"
/. everytime the Organization-That-Must-Not-Be-Named is mentioned. Unfortunately, the proles A) Believe whatever they hear on the TV, B) Do NOT read /., and C) Care only about their bread and circuses.
It's thrown around
Don't you dare do ANYTHING to their circuses. This is why DRM products always fail - They interrupt the proles' circus. However, for the most part, A overrides C. As long as each individual lost circus show isn't too big, the media groups and their controllers can get away with it.
Now, this whole "Make anyone who uses Kazaa the bride of Big Gay Bubba" thing would interfere with the circus, but the odds of getting sued are insignificant. So unless a prole is directly related one of the Organization-That-Must-Not-Be-Named's victims, they won't percieve any interruption in their circuses because they believe whatever the Telescreen says. And we know how the horrible internet music pirates and thieves who make songs available for free download are hurting the artists (Those bastards!) get a fair chance on TV. And remember that we [The Organization-That-Must-Not-Be-Named] are fighting this good war in the name of the artists and on principle, not our profits! We care about the artists!
Yah. And why no mention of Metallica? Heck, weren't they one of the RIAA's prime examples of artists (Metallica artists... I crack myself up.) who were being harmed by all this music trading.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
People don't listen to pop music because it's good music. It's because the singers are sexy or cool, and because it's marketed well.
Pop music, like pop movies, are primarily a marketing phenomenon. Very few pop movies induce me to say "Wow, that was really impressive acting."
Why do you think so few resources go into producing the music, and so much into marketing it?
May we never see th
I think he had an operation done
He? When did *that* happen?
May we never see th
For those not already boycotting all RIAA labels, or at least the top 5, it looks like a good list of artists to boycott. No CDs, no shirts, no concerts, etc....
I'd be unhappy if I were an artist, and my sales went down because the RIAA used me to persecute citizens.
Open Standards Portal
maybe enough individuals could eventually team up, get all cases into a single jurisdiction, and try to start bleeding them again
Oh man, does this make me depressed.
What you describe will never happen, because technically, what they were doing is illegal. Of course, someone could show that the RIAA doesn't have enough evidence to prove damages, but that's another matter entirely that's highly unlikely anyway.
In some respects, I'm glad the RIAA is doing this rather than other things. I personally feel that going after P2P networks ala Napster was completely illegal and inappropriate. Going after the file sharers themselves, while unethical and distasteful, is at least technically legitimate in my mind.
The problem we have here is of one party engaged in unlawful behavior attacking another party engaged in unlawful behavior. Why is this problematic? Because the law as it currently stands only recognizes the behavior of one party as being illegal.
My impression of things--and economists can comment on this--is that whenever a large black market emerges, it's a big sign that the "legitimate" economy is failing. This seemed to be true post WWII, it seemed to be true after the falls of many goverments with the cold war and afterwards, and it seems to be true now. People trade copyrighted music files because the RIAA has an unfair and unethical monopoly over music media, and charges an inappropriate and unfair amount of money for it. If music were distributed in a modern manner, and priced fairly, this would not be happening.
What really needs to happen is that legislation needs to be introduced to demonopolize the media industry--that includes the RIAA, Clear Channel, the whole shebang. What makes me depressed is that the current goverment is so completely corrupted by corporations--America has basically already become a corporatocracy--that this is not likely.
So no, I doubt that these traders being sued will band together with a common defense and bleed the RIAA dry. What's more likely to be effective--if not likely overall--is that the RIAA will piss enough people off that someone will actually look into the problems of the media industry and do something about them.
I'm surprised that Dave Matthews Band shows up on the list. Sure, they have the right to protect their studio recordings as much as the next guy, but if the data being pulled is based on song title, the number of legally taped live performances is going to throw a false positive more times than not.
This sig intentionally left justified.
As im lost in this confusing RIAA war, just a quickie clarifcation question: The RIAA is going after file-sharers correct? Not file-leechers? File leechers being those that take and don't share. I see no way the RIAA having a valid case against a file-leecher (since a file-leecher can easily argue they they are trying to get their fair-use due to the corrupted CDs out there). if thats the case... bleh leecher will be the only ones that survive...
More people would buy the album if they couldn't download the one good song on it. This is what the RIAA wants. They don't want to sell you an album you are going to treasure and listen to 1000 times. They want to sell you an album you listen to twice and forget about when the next candy ass pop star releases more junk.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Granted, I don't make my money selling my music, but I can't help but imagine that if I did, I'd be trying to opt out of having my songs used as bait for prosecution. Of course I'd want my fans to actually buy my CDs, but I can't imagine I'd be very comfortable knowing some 14 year old kids's life was being ruined because he wanted to hear my music and didn't want to or couldn't pay for it. If I'd have to end up having a day job because of it, then tough shit for me. At least I'd be able to sleep at night. I'm really kinda surprised at least a couple artists haven't come out against this draconian nonsense. I know a million other comments have brought up the point that you're better off shoplifting CDs than downloading them nowadays, but seriously... that's just not right. I'm totally for artists rights, but I'm sure even some of their stomachs are turning at these recent events.
Metallica artists... I crack myself up
Metallica stopped being artists the moment they made Load (should have added "of Absolute Shite" to the title), possibly even the black album, and started seeing too many dollar signs. It's amazing how many people I've spoken to who were long time fans of the band from the Kill 'Em All days hate them with a passion now because they sold out. Talk about alienating your original fanbase.
Yeh, offtopic I know but it was a necessary rant.
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
>The acoustic versions of Four Horsemen and Motorbreath are well worth getting
I am now depressed that I've lived long enough to here that said sincerely.
How much longer until the headbangers of my childhood/teen years end up in a Moody Blues light-show extravagenza or does a Who-like jump into theater.
The good die young for a reason. They don't have the rest of their lives to screw up what made them good in the first place.
Maybe they figured the rather unique words/spellings of the titles and/or artists of a lot of these songs would present the lowest possibility of tripping on another embarrassing false positive while still being popular enough to net plenty of "examples."
Just a thought.
Game... blouses.
Elitist? Because people don't listen to the same regurgitated, marketed-to-death CRAP? That makes them elitist? Am I an "elitist" because I spurn Linkin Park and Slipknot for bands like Napalm Death and Morbid Angel? Bands that were playing EXACTLY what these bands play, oh... TEN YEARS AGO?!?!
:)
Because one doesn't buy into the marketing, has different tastes than you, and refuses to follow/live/emulate the "stars" of today does NOT make them elitist. That's like saying I'm elitist because I would rather drive a Camry than an Excursion or some other SUV (and to be clear, I could care less what people drive).
Not everyone can handle the fluff and pap that gets shoveled down our throats on a daily basis. Not all bands and artists follow the same path that you outlined in your last paragraph. Not everything is as black and white and you make it out to be.
You don't happen to go around calling people who disagree with you "liberals", do you?
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
So instead of hurting big time labels and rich artists you're going to pirate the music of the poorer independent artists. They rely even more on whatever small income they can make from selling 5-10 thousand CDs in a regional market. Pirating their music doesn't help them, but buying their CD off of cdbaby.com or somewhere does. Not to mention you can stick it to the RIAA by not giving your money to their artists.
Metalliwho? They still make music?
Seriously, I think that by pissing off so many with the high-and-mighty act in regards to Napster and music sharing in general they've managed to cut themselves off from a large audience.
Had they not been jackasses about the whole situation I'd be inclined to fire up WinMX and give their new stuff a listen, just to see what the bad-boys-gone-pop have been up to lately. There are a lot of people I know that have not heard the new Metallica stuff, but might give it a listen if somebody mentioned having heard it and liked it.
Peer-to-peer file sharing is a great marketing tool, although one that's hard to control. Metallica cut themselves off from a lot of word-of-mouth, and since I don't hear their music on any of the radio stations I listen to while in the car, they're in practically the same position as other bands who can't get played on the radio: their work is unheard of, and a little word of mouth would go a long way.
Metallica took a moral stand against the free advertising P2P provided. I'm letting them have their moral stand, and I'm sure they'd be interested to know that it's that very moral stand which is preventing them from getting the advertising they might have gotten when people shared mix tapes in the '80s*, or when they swapped files in the late '90s forward.
* Ahh, mix tapes. The seek time sucked, but how nice is it to fit media in your pocket? I wonder about the utility of a mini-disc drive for the PC...
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
I think more resources go into marketing than into production for two reasons; spending money on marketing usually works, and record company executives can justifiably claim credit when the marketing works.
:-), can explain some of the actions that the media companies have taken lately. Piracy is a big problem if you have only a short window of popularity to exploit for making money. People passing around bootleg copies of Pink Floyd albums are not really a problem since there are plenty of other albums they might buy if they become interested in the music. Bootleg copies of American Idols' music are a big problem because it is quite possible that after 6 months there will be no market for the CD's.
The mainstream market for CD's (and movies) thrives on novelty. If you want to sell a lot of CD's you'll have to first get the artist noticed, then convince the public that there is something new and different about it. Think "American Idol" where previously unknown artists with no track record are suddenly selling boatloads of CD's. It is too early to tell whether there is any long-term market for the Idols' music, but I'll bet the record companies have already earned a profit on the music.
Marketing will usually result in a profit, but there is even more incentive for taking this approach because the record executives that decided how to market it can claim part of the credit for the success of the artist. If too many artists succeed without any marketing, how will the executives justify their huge salaries and bonuses if they can't claim to be responsible for the success?
Movies are the same thing. If a heavily hyped movie makes a lot of money, executives can claim part of the credit, so they look for movies that are easy to hype (like sequels).
Now all of this, assuming it isn't entirely a product of my cynical mind
Since media companies think that successful sales only occur as a result of hype, they will keep pushing for laws that ensure they will be the only ones that profit from the hype. Disney got the copyright term extended to protect their investment in hyping Mickey Mouse, not to repay the original production costs or to ensure that more Mickeys will be created. The original creators have been paid, the work exists; the only ongoing expense is marketing.
Now all of this works against my interests as a consumer. I am not all that interested in most of the music that is currently being hyped; but that is all you hear on the radio or can buy in the stores. The music companies are pulling every trick they can to ensure that people are exposed only to the latest hype. I am finding it harder to find the music I like, and when I do it costs more because it is rare (why is it that the popular music that everyone wants costs less and the obscure music that no one likes costs more? Shouldn't it be the opposite?).
The record companies have pretty much lost me as a customer, and I own more than 1000 CD's. When I recently found a CD at a price I was willing to pay, I had to return it when I discovered that it was copy-protected. I want to be able to listen to something I buy for the next 10 years or more; what guarantee do I have that a copy-protected CD will even play in the next CD player I buy?
The record companies are doing everything they can to ensure they make back their marketing investments, but unfortunately that is making the music business much less relevant to me. I hope the companies wake up and realize that they could be selling 100+ CD's a year to me again; but I have my doubts, and in the meantime, my lost sales will be attributed to piracy.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
not true.
all stduies have shown, getting released through p2p increases sales.
Almost every emmnemm song was on a p2p before his album was released. It went platinum in what, a weekend?
If it is a good song, people will buy it.
yes I understand its counter intuitive, but thats is just one of many things that are counter intuitive. Like owning ideas.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It is clearly music popular with teens that they are targeting. Teens are also the ones they want to sell CDs to at outrageously inflated prices. An industry that exists to rip off children is a public nusiance. Boycott the recording industry. Don't buy CDs.
How ya like dat?