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EFF's New File-Sharing Scheme
carpoolio writes "Wednesday at the Future of Music's Music Law Summit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation proposed a new licensing plan so file-sharing sites can operate, and musicians can get paid. The idea is based on the ASCAP/BMI radio music licensing schemes. But still, the RIAA seems happy to continue suing, and wait for iTunes and Napster to catch on more."
Well, then write 'em an email that you don't like/understand their proposal. Chances, that you'll get an answer, are higher than not being sued by the RIAA.
Do the artists own the rights to their music??? Many times not. So, the person getting paid is the owner of the rights being the Label.
Evolution or ID?
[the RIAA]summarily dismissed the EFF's proposal as too "drastic"
Article here
In the past couple of weeks, the anonymous Freenet has started working like gangbusters. Freenetters have been seeing incredible speeds.
End users who have MP3s and have not passed them on to others have been left alone, regardless of whether those MP3s were obtained legitimately or not. There's little to reason to believe the RIAA would change tack on that.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Seen in this light, if the artists were to make a quarter of the money that the RIAA/MPAA makes off of the artists, they would probably see a massive increase in their finances.
Remember, 100% of 8 dollars is better than 5% of 12.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
"The record labels only exist to market and distribute pop music and those functions can be completely done by other means now."
That is oversimplifying it a bit. They also provide the (not insignificant) funds to have the recordings made. Additionally, running a successful sales marketing campaign is not easy. As much as we all like to revile salespeople and marketers, there is an art and a science to the practice, which is why degrees are issued in those fields.
"I have found some of the /best/ music on line in the last few years and none of it is available at a music store."
Your argument that this is an acceptable alternative only holds if you also subscribe to the notion that real artists don't care about money and should be happy with their lot in life of scraping by. Signing a record deal rather than going with the self-promoting route can be a lot easier and make you a lot more money. I'm of the general opinion that since all of us reading this do like money, we shouldn't assume that this isn't the case for anybody else. Artists are not second-class citizens, and if they want to make as much money as they can, they should not be looked down upon.
"To take this even one more step off-topic, you can argue that the whole MTV half-time boobie stunt (which has now mutated into a weird free-speech thing)was simply to steal the thunder of the iTMS/Pepsi/arrested-by-the-RIAA commecial. It shows that the labels are not needed and can /easily/ be done away with."
I don't understand this point. Do you mean that MTV and/or the record labels feel that iTMS is competition? iTMS is a sales channel, just like Amazon or a record store. MTV is a marketing channel.
"All music related marketing and distribution can be done on-line. The old business model is dead and not needed or wanted. The first major band to sign directly with iTMS/Napster/whatever will turn the tide."
This same argument was pretty common three years ago during the original Napster heyday. In almost the same words, people decreed that record labels were dead, and Real Soon Now, artists were going to opt for not re-upping their contracts and instead embrace the cure-all that is the Internet and P2P.
I acknowledge that many people reading this simply weren't alive back when this happened, but the record companies survived the transition from vinyl to CDs. It took several years before the viability of the new medium was finally proven to the record companies, and before all the music was available in the format. The record industry survived the launch of the cassette tape, the eight track, and the move from the wax cylinder to the 78. Each undoubtedly took more time than some consumers would have liked, but it happened.
The record companies will survive this one, too.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
The P2P network would not be checking to make sure you had a license anyway. It would be your job to make sure you're licensed, under this scheme, or else you might get sued. You could hop on any P2P network you wanted to, without a license, and download music, but you could find yourself on the wrong end of a lawsuit that way.
Regexes are like cocaine. The first hit is pretty good, but afterwards you try to use them to solve all your problems.
3) Wait a minute...If you stop paying, do you lose the rights to the music you downloaded?
You're buying into an RIAA fiction here. According to US copyright law there are six rights avaiable for licencing, but they really only amount to three different rights:
(1) A licence to make reproductions
(2) and derivatives
(3) A licence to distribute
(4) A licence to public display
(5) or public performance
(6) including Digital Audio
A licence to create reproductions, a licence to distribute, a licence to public display, period. A licence does not exist unless someone is licencing you one or more of those rights. There is no such thing as a licence to use.
Once you have a copy, you own that copy. You have every right to play it as much as you like whenever you like. You have every right to create a back-up of it, or to play it backwards, or to use it in a school project, and on and on and on.
So if you stop paying then you can keep playing whatever you already own, but you can no longer create/distribute new copies of them by sharing them on P2P.
P.S.
According to another clause of another clause of US copyright law, when you buy a box of software you also have every right to install and run that software without any licence whatsoever. EULA's are not in fact licences unless they are granting you reproduction, distribution, and/or public display rights as listed above. EULA's are in fact an attempt to impose a contract. You have the right to decline a contract at will, but if you decline it you obviously do not gain any benefits offered by that contract. Of cource most EULA's offer you nothing you'd want anyway - you already have the right to install/run the software.
Any attempt to enforce EULA's rests entirely on arguing that the buyer somehow willingly chose to agree to that contract. While courts generally bend over backwards to allow people to willingly create contracts, claims that merely buying a box indicates agreement to a contract are legally very questionable. The very purpose of the UCITA bill floating around is to turn all EULA's into valid enforcable contracts.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.