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RIAA Forgets to Make Royalty Payments
theodp writes "NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer agreed with the RIAA on one point - artists WERE being deprived of money that was rightfully theirs. But Spitzer managed to find $50 million for performers without shaking down grandmothers. Spitzer's culprits? A Who's Who of the nation's top recording companies - members of the RIAA - who failed to maintain contact with artists and stopped making required royalty payments."
From the Article ( bold emphasis added):
While this will be great for a lot of artists I question the motive. I doubt that Eliot Spitzer is doing this for artists. I'm sure New York state will benefit from the interest revenue from "hold[ing] these monies. It won't hurt his career to have his name in the paper either.
Of course, I didn't bother to look up his record. Maybe he really is just doing his job, protecting the citizens of New York State.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Oh well. Good that they caught this. The artist do deserve their money.
I am as anti-RIAA as the next guy, but this doesn't seem all that bad.
The RIAA is going out of there way to correct a royalty problem that may/may not have entirely been their fault. And the article makes it seem that it was the idea of an RIAA lawyer.
Just my 2 cents...
Don't villianize the RIAA. It's not their fault the artists didn't want their money. After all, it should be the artists responsibility to track all playings of their song around the world.
That lie aside, the RIAA sucks. I'm glad I'm not a musician on an RIAA label, I would hate myself.
hrrm.
that napster can be free again?
Don't tell me the RIAA are a bunch of hypocritical, dishonest bastards! Now I have nothing left to believe in.
Friggin' corporate pirates should be MADE to pay their proper dues!
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Who didn't see that coming? It's like accusing your roommate of stealing the keys and then finding out you left them in the car. Now big business and bad accountants have ruined a good thing for a whole bunch of people.
In Soviet Russia, RIAA pays you!
It looks like the RIAA wasn't paying because the artists didn't bother to get their payments from them. I'm sure if David Bowie wanted his money he could have gone to the RIAA and gotten it, but he didn't bother to go to the RIAA to get his money. Maybe the RIAA could have tried a little harder to contact these people, but I know that if the someone owes me money, they're going to be hearing from me until I get it.
I don't understand why the government has not seen the RIAA as an orginization that doesn't adhear to the rules that it's set for everyone else. They have such deep pockets, they can make the effort to locate the artists and pay the royalties. Don't be surprised that this has happened. There's much more to come out of this...
Another question would be WHY the RIAA lost touch with these artists. Was it on purpose or accident?
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
"Standard Industry Practice."
RIAA members ripping off their artists is nothing new - it's been documented over and over and fucking over again. I'm sure some slashdotters can point to half a dozen articles written by artists who point out that, by the time the RIAA gets done doing the math on a "standard" industry contract, an even moderately sucessful artist winds up OWING a few thousand dollars to the label and is pretty much an indentured servant, because they can't jump labels to find a better deal by the terms of the contract.
What we REALLY need is for some court ruling to take all those fucking provisions, and declare them illegal. THEN when the RIAA cries about "artists" being deprived of money due to file sharing, I might give a rat's ass about their bullshit argument.
I find it completely unconsionable that the RIAA failed to protect the artists rights and make payments when due. Claiming they couldn't find the artists involved is a fabrication of the most fraudulent kind. It's not like David Bowie has fallen off the face of the earth.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Does this mean that since the RIAA is out 50 mil... (that THEY diddn't think to give to the rightful owner).... the 50 mil will be deducted from the amount of money made through cd sales so they can whine a bit more about file sharing?
Forgive my oversimplification of the RIAA (and Anti-RIAA) tactics, but it seems to me like this is such a cat and mouse game. Someone points out problems with the RIAA, the RIAA points out problems with filesharing. One-Up to P2P, One-Up to RIAA. I'm waiting to see if politics, technology and common sense can elicit some sort of resolution to this perpetual nonsense. I won't hold my breath.
I don't understand. If you move, and you know you will get royalties from a record label... Won't YOU tell them your new adress??? I Would!
coming to terms with the fact that the new-yacht-a-month club is going to have to tone down and make with what they already have.
A digital robin hood am I, and through my uploading I give to the poor.
Prominent artists who were owed royalty payments included: David Bowie, Dolly Parton, Harry Belafonte, Liza Minnelli, Dave Matthews, Sean Combs and Gloria Estefan.
Ummm....how exactly do you lose track of your prominent artists? And for that matter, why aren't the agents of these artists banging down the doors at Sony, BMI, Vivendi, EMI, and so forth to get the royalties? IOW, the agents conveniently forgot to collect? Something doesn't sound right here -- when in the history of business has someone not aggressively pursued their debtors?
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Of course, I didn't bother to look up his record. Maybe he really is just doing his job, protecting the citizens of New York State.
How can you be insightful without doign reasearch.
This post shoudl be at -1 speculation.
I am a hard core right winger, and almost always think that slashdot is way to hard on corporations.
This I agree on though. The RIAA are a bunch of friggin' corporate pirates.
According to CNN, sales dropped about 7.5% from 2002 levels of 32.2 billion to 2003 sales of 32.0 billion. RIAA blames "rampant piracy" for this.
Therefore, according to RIAA, piracy accounted for 200 million in sales loss. Therefore (unless artists get 25% or more of retail) with this announcement of withholding 50m in royalties from artists, the RIAA itself is personally responsible for more monetary loss to artists than piracy.
I didn't know you had to 'agree' with a law before it was applicable to you. Interesting.
The RIAA has sued what, 3000 people so far? With an average "catch" of $2500 each? If these numbers are correct, that's $7.5 million. Versus $50 million that RIAA cheated their own artists out of!
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
Have any of you ever paid a bill slightly (or even very) late? Ever take out a loan, with which you intended to enrich yourself, and then take longer to pay it back than you originally contracted?
If yes, do you then have the right to criticize the RIAA?
The fact is, RIAA's actions, though despicable, are ultimately irrelevant to whether or not it is morally acceptable, and/or should be legally acceptable, to copy and distribute someone else's work without authorization, contract or payment arrangement. The fact that RIAA members were lax paying artists does not give anyone a free pass, morally or legally, to download music illicitly. It does not make the claim that artists are being ripped off by illegal music downloaders any more or less debatable.
This is not an issue appropriate for posting to slashdot IMO. When the story deals with whether downloads are/should be acceptable, it's a tech story. When the story is about an RIAA conflict with artists, and the sole reason for posting it is to wag the finger of shame at RIAA for being hypocrites (ostensibly), that's just pandering and incitement.
"SOLLY CHOLLY!"
The same is not true of the RIAA
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
...paid...they should be paid with interest plus fined/sued for compensation. This is a perfect opportunity to point out that there shouldn't be one rule for consumers and one rule for the conglomerates.
I am NaN
Sounds to me like the artists may find better protection with the mob.
Another rhetorical tool I can use to justify my ongoing piracy!
40gigs and counting, baby.
Somwhere at an RIAA office:
"Hello, kettle it's the pot, line 2, he's says your black"
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Kind of reminds of me of some bigger (cough - Catholic Church) examples (cough - US war effort).
I'm sure that last bit will get me slammed. There goes my karma =D
I must point out that it is only individual members of the RIAA, not the RIAA itself, that are responsible for failing to pass on the royalties, and this in no way reflects RIAA policies. It simply shows poor or irresponsible book keeping on the part of the companies involved.
To pre-empt any ad-hominem replies: I do not like the RIAA's tactics & I was once signed to one of the companies mentioned (BMG). But claiming this is an RIAA act is entirely incorrect, self gratifying FUD, and as we all know, spouting crap in lieu of facts does not make a convincing case. If you want to criticize a system, learn how the system works first.
How priceless :P
-Imidazole2
Try looking here
...I hate them so much!!!!!!!!
With all of the noxious public actions they have taken it turns out the RIAA is the biggest music music theif of them all.
Until they got caught, this didn't hurt the music industry at all. It hurt the artists, yes. But the RIAA *IS* the music industry, and they were the benefactors of this "mistake".
So while I agree with your sentiment, I'd have to disagree with your statement.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
So, I wake up from a five year coma. I go looking for my royalty checks, and am told that they are being held by the state.
So, I go down to the Comptroller's office in Lincoln and ask where my money is. They tell me it must be some other state. Well, my brother is in Florida... I'll call there. Nope. Oh, yeah, my mom in Arizona, maybe it's that state. Nope.
Why would my money be in New York? Why not California where a "marginal" majority of these contracts are signed? It's great that the proceeds from this money will go to benefit the people of New York, but what if I don't live there?
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
It's called asking a Question to incite conversation.
And what does, doign, mean anyway?
In Soviet Russia, you uppercases YOU!
RIAA forgets to pay royalties? From the article it was the RIAA lawyer who brought the problem up. The RIAA member companies were not forgetting to pay anyone. They had lost contact with the artists not through any fault of their own, but because the artists had not updated their contact details. Shite - even evil entities are capable of acts of good. In this case the RIAA did the right thing.
Who says they haven't? You are making the assumption that the government believes that the rules apply equally to everyone. If that were the case, then Oprah Winfrey would have been fined or taken off the air for indecency. Microsoft would have been punished under anti-trust laws and for illegally maintaining a monopoly. There are many many many other examples, these are just some of the more high profile ones.
The rules do not apply equally to everyone.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
You mean an trustworthy organization such as the riaa, who's sole reason is to protect artists rights, isn't protecting artists. Instead it is only taking from them. I would have NEVER suspected. I guess they only respect copyright law when they can get money and not have they rightfully owe it. I know increasing copyright law to give the riaa more rights is the thing to do. That way this will never happen again.
The royalties are nothing to the RIAA, the amount the artists receive are about 50 cents out of the average $15 CD. That's why the organized music industry is so strong--they have an extremely vested interest in keeping this atrocious pricing structure intact. The real reason the internet worries the RIAA is that for the first time, artists (like Prince and Pearl Jam) have the ability to completely bypass this archaic distribution system and sell directly to the consumer, without all the associated markups, and receive a larger piece of the pie. Commercial distribution systems like iTunes are actually closer to traditional CD/vinyl sales, at least in their royalty structure.
From the article, this investigation started 2 years ago - seemingly consequential with when the RIAA lawsuits started their civil suits against Grandma, Grandpa and little Suzie. I would assume that this 50m was placed in the category of overall profit - however "technically" tied up.
Although this "music industry" attorney came forward - that doesn't mean that he was with the RIAA. If he was with the RIAA - why would we have to go to State to get things resolved? Especially since the letter gives off the impression that the RIAA was so willing to cooperate?
Morals do matter.
You can't make a claim about filesharing on moral grounds if your own morals are suspect.
If you're a crook, its hard to take cries of "thief" very seriously.
So what's stopping you from creating something 'better'?
I gotta say that it sure sounds like Sptizer has been sticking it to THA MAN and has been dealing out the asswhuppin where it needs to go. I am personally in the "anti-corp" camp. Senator Disney, RIAA / MPAA, infinite copyright etc. - screw 'em all! With a flaming telephone pole!
4 /f eature_thompson_mayjun04.html
But you look at the tool that Eliot Sptizer is using to lay all this smack down with and from what I've heard it's totally outta control. The way Sptizer is using it is cool, but what if Spitzer was an asshole? DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/May-June-200
Plenty of bullshit argument from both sides.
I've been working on an idea that I think can be a step forward for both sides...
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
I think the subject says it all...^^^
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
What's the difference? I personally think there should be astronomical fines, terminations and prison time for RIAA executives.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
I love music, and used to spend a lot on buying new CDs before this RIAA shakedown started. Stories like this, however, have made me change my ways, and now I buy exactly $0's worth from any label that supports the RIAA.
It's appalling to think that this is all done defending artists from file sharers when their watchdog is either this clueless or dishonest...with the RIAA, it's hard to tell which.
Artists might fare better if they could see an alternative to this corporate mire. Perhaps if they understood that consumers would be more supportive of the music if there was some reasonable guarantee that money would actually get to the artist rather than a conglomerate?
Granted I have no guarantee of that with my current label selections, but I feel better knowing that my cash isn't feeding the anti-piracy machine.
- Jack
Time to flush the toliet on the middlemen. Boycott industry music, and roll your own crap. All this talk about the important role of the middle men in choosing good music, and what do we get? Good Charlotte, Britney Spears, Sean Puffy PDiddy Combs? Give me a garage band anyday!
A lawyer joke:
A Lawyer's Moral Dilemma:
Did you hear about the lawyer who was overpaid by his client and he couldn't decide if should tell his partner?
I love to see lawyers fighting each other. Unfortunately, when the bills arrive, the costs of all this legal frivalty are passed down to the consumer.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
...so they can either cheat him blind or sue him later on.
Because the state is less likely to bankrupt than those companies.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
The Canadian wing of the RIAA, the CRIA, convinced our lame government to put a levy on blank CD media. Their argument was that people were using the media to rip CDs and thus the every day musician was getting short changed for his/her hard work. The gov't agreed and the funds collected through this levy were assigned to the CRIA to be redistributed to artists as compensation.
In reality, the CRIA has only redistributed a microscopic portion of the fund to the artists - the rest has been going right into the CRIA's coffers. How's that for compensation....
wtf? That's 0.6% not 7.5%
The 32.2 G$ figure is apparently for all media formats, including DVD-audio, Apple iTunes, and music video sales, which were all rising. The 7.5% figure is the fall in sales in the CD category only. The basic math about the royalties fraud versus piracy losses for artists is probably still right.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
For example, I've forgotten that I need to be bothered with buying overpriced CDs for the past 8 years. Instead, I've been spending my cash on video games, DVDs, live entertainment and socializing with my friends.
And sometimes I also forget that I don't need to buy a CD in order to determine whether I like the music. P2P has been gracious enough to keep reminding me of this whenever I feel the urge to go to the nearest Virgin Megastore..........
This is more akin to hiring someone to work for you, then not making *any* effort to pay them, knowing that you owe them money, even though the contract you signed makes you the responsible party in ensuring the hiree is paid correctly.
Which name should they ask for? Puff Daddy, Sean Puffy? To paraphrase Mr. Mathers, Will the real P. Diddy, please stand up?
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Let's not forget the obligatory:
1. Charge people waaayyyyy too much for plastic, shiny disks
2. "Accidentally" lose track of famous artists, one of which lives in a huge amusement park that a 3 year old from Japan could locate
3. ????
4. PROFIT!!!!!! YEAH baby, YEAH!!
*rinse* *lather* *repeat*
John "Dripping with Irony"
The point that everyone conveniently is avoiding in order to engage in nit-picking assholery, is that artists' beef with RIAA has absolutely dick to do with copyright offenses against the RIAA.
It doesn't magically make the illegal downloading of mp3s no longer affect artists, all it does is shows that the artists are getting screwed by both sides - RIAA AND the thieving, [down/free]loading public.
And what's funny besides is this: if you criticize RIAA on this but have also criticized them before on their copyright stance, then you are a hypocrite.
I'd assume it's because these companies are based in New York. Otherwise, I don't see how the NY AG would have any jurisdiction over them.
The money goes to the state where the entity collecting the money is based.
What if I live in Nebraska?
If they can't find you to send you the money, how would they know to send it to Nebraska?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I should have timed my watch and made a bet for the first comment to appear that used this as justification for illegal piracy.
Piracy is magically a "pinprick" now? "So it seems?" These half-assed justifications are silly.
Oh well. Good that they caught this. The artist do deserve their money.
The funny part is, you get modded up Insightful for saying that in an article about some record labels (not the RIAA) not paying some royalties in some cases, but if you say that in an article about a piracy crackdown, you get modded as Troll! And about 50 people reply to you in an attempt to bash you down.
I guess artists only deserve their money in situations in which a convenient scapegoat gets punished, not illegal P2P downloaders ripping artists off.
yaawwn
NY DA Spitzer is doing a far better job at
protecting citizen's rights from crooked
corporations and corporate executives than
the US DoJ, which appears to be unenthusiastic
about corporate fraud or monopolistic actions.
(No big surprise here, huh?)
A recent interview with Spitzer on the
"Charlie Rose" program gave me a new level
of respect for this crusader. He has no
stated political ambitions (or agenda)
beyond doing a great job as DA for the
citizens of NY and the USA.
I would really like to see him run for
President: he reminds me (historically)
of Teddy Roosevelt, a populist AND
conservative (in it's best definition)!
Let me get this straight. They claim that they couldn't send people their royalties because they had lost touch with them.
How the hell do you lose someone like Bowie?
They obviously weren't trying very hard...
I submit that Dolly has far better terms than some relatively unknown/new/crap band, and probably does rather well with mechanical royalties, and other royalties than the unknown/new/crap band.
IOW, Dolly is most likely making money in areas that an unknown/new/crap band would not, such as printed sheet music, covers by other artists, film and television, and public performance (musak, etc.).
That said, it's not surprising that the whore-tards in the RIAA wanted to 'misplace' those extra dollars; what is surprising is that the missing artists' lawyers weren't all over those nickels and dimes in the first place - especially Dolly's lawyers. She likes the money.
Even more reason to bypass the RIAA. What you lose in enforcement (public performances, radio play) and marketing, you gain in knowing that you are getting the best deal as an artist.
Under the psydonyms 'John' and 'Ringo'...
where can I pick up my check?
"If you want to criticize a system, learn how the system works first."
:-| ) still I've got plenty of negative comments on it. A bit more subtle maybe than "labels are corrupt and unnecessary" or "copying is gooood" but still, I think the "industry" is shooting itself in the foot over and over again.
Well, I've tried, I'm still trying. But being an artist yourself, wouldn't you say that the system is overly complicated? And that some of that complication is by design?
I understand a lot of it is very necessary, with so many people involved in creating, performing, fine-tuning, producing, publishing, marketing etc etc. There need to be some regulations, some "best practices" and some assurances in order to give everybody a fair share or pay. And in principle there's nothing wrong with having bodies that represent all those parties.
But there are a lot of structures in place just to keep things as they are, even if they're totally contra-productive. And it's extremely "top down" so that even if you find out how to avoid the ugly parts of the system, the downside is that you're then outside the system and have to do every goddamn thing yourself. There's not much of a middle way, and everything seems to involve lawyers.
It's ironic that such a creative industry is being "led" in such a conservative, uninspiring and cold manner.
I think therefore that it is quite understandable that people feel the need to criticize the system without bothering to learn all its intricacies. Not everybody wants to be a lawyer.
Actually, as part of a small label, I'm "part of the business" and don't get all of it ( IANAL
Which incidentally is really bad for composers, artists and performers, the ones that feed the industry.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
The advantages that prosecutors have when going after the RIAA, are that the contract terms are in writing and the money to pay the artists is really there.
If you contrast that to P2P, you will find that a large amount of downloaded music would not have been purchased anyway. This makes it difficult to accurately determine the dollar effect of P2P infringement.
Piracy is costing them millions of dollars! The piracy that is costing them so much money is not the P2P kind but the organized crime syndicates that makes copies of CD's right down to the cover and liner notes and passes them off as the real thing. In most cases you cannot tell the difference. If you buy more than 10 CD's a year chances are you have a pirated copy in your collection.
By the RIAA's own figures 1 in 6 discs is a pirate copy. Of course these pirates are harder to catch, cost more money to do so and they are a lot meaner and likely to shot you than granny downloading a Lawrence Welk song from the internet. The RIAA is just going for the easy money.
I'm glad someone found this story and pointed this out. All along we've considered the 'Napster issue' from an impartial POV when yes, DUH, everyone knows what crooks these recording company execs are, everyone knows at least half a dozen horror stories about how songwriters and performers are getting ripped off all the time. Music is supposed to be nice, and beneficial, and soul-soothing - it's a wonder and a mystery why these lowlifes get into the business in the first place.
Both David Lindley and Courtney Love have spoken out eloquently against them in the past. I think we should remember who the real villains are here - and that they're not 13yos with a few songs on a hard drive.
"NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer agreed with the RIAA on one point - artists WERE being deprived of money that was rightfully theirs. But Spitzer managed to find $50 million for performers without shaking down grandmothers. Spitzer's culprits? A Who's Who of the nation's top recording companies - members of the RIAA - who failed to maintain contact with artists and stopped making required royalty payments."
If we all just downloaded our song using p2p networks instead of paying for them, the recording industry wouldn't have this problem.
My favorite part is how the RIAA "lost contact". Yeah, P Diddy is real hard to find. He is in any one of a thousand NY Night Clubs popping some caps off on Sat. night. Maybe David Bowie and P Diddy should have done a search for their own songs on Kazaa. I'll bet the RIAA would have had no problems finding them then.
You mean record companies aren't really concerned with making sure artists get royalities due to them? Say it isn't so! I thought the record companies were in it for the artist's benefit? ;)
Sue people for trading MP3s and then don't pay the artists that you're suing about. Sounds like the things are running as normal for the companies in the RIAA.
The RIAA should have been putting their money where their mouth is, instead of their feet.
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
Read down to "accounting practices" in this almost two-year old article from USA Today. Even paid royaties are often off by 10-40 percent.
- 15 -artists-rights_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09
Another standard industry practice is to charge musicians for the audit to find any missing royalties. That's a big incentive to musicians getting anything, because they have to pay to get paid. I suspect that this practice was part of why Donnelly (the musicians' lawyer in the original article) brought the case to the NY A.G. to begin with. The A.G. was able to investigate without the artists being penalized.
Eliot Spitzer is amazing. His job is to oversee New York State as its attorney general,
but since that includes New York City, Manhattan, and Wall Street, he has made it his business to
investigate and press charges against people in the investment banking, mutual fund, and insurance industries, among others.
Check out Google News or his re-election site for what he's accomplished.
I think many people who make their money on Wall Street by taking advantage of the markets would say he does far more than his job, but people all over the world benefit. He's almost like Greenspan in the way he weilds influence. If either of these two go corrupt, or are replaced by corrupt people, America will suffer a very serious setback.
I applaud you, but don't forget the the last thing the RIAA/MPAA want you to spend money on . . . BOOKS! :D
Better yet, the next time you go book shopping, stock up on some of Lessig's works. Double whammy!
----
"Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so."-Lawrence Lessig
Bush calls on RIAA to wack Osama Bin Laden at SlashNOT.com
Poetic Justice....
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."-THG
If you live in Nebraska, go here
Cool, I just found stuff belonging to my Grandma myself.
This is exactly what the RIAA is claiming P2P file sharing is doing to artists. Using an an artist's copyrighted material without paying for the privelidge of that use.
Seems amazingly clear to me - a "textbook" example of what the RIAA is trying to prevent.
Of course not.
But the RIAA has chosen to position this fight as a moral battle. And so if you don't have moral authority (and they don't), the argument is not convincing.
RIAA: You're stealing from the artists
PUBLIC: Pot, kettle black.
RIAA: Okay, we may be thieves, but you're...uh... theivier?
I don't know how to make it clearer for you. I think you really don't *want* to understand.
You didnt' sell any albums.
Just kidding of course. I know it was the P2P networks that ruined you. They're the root of all troubles today.
20 years ago P2P network were the result of communism. Now, of course, we realize P2P is related to terrorism, but in a bad way, not a good way.
"They had lost contact with the artists "
David Bowie? I mean what kind of joke name is that. Dolly Parton? Puhleeze...
I could go on and on with these obscure acts the RIAA members couldn't find. I mean, how can you blame them...These are unknown artists that would be impossible to track down with, say, one phone call. To their agent.
People are so picky about stuff.
I buy during their monthly sales, and routinely get CD's for $7-8 with shipping included.
Nice deal.
This reminds me of a Steve Martin skit (in his early days) about "How do you make 6 million dollars and not pay any taxes?".
Minus, of course, the elongating of words, the knocking sound effects and of course the setup and body language.
His answer? Just two words. When the tax man arrives at your door. Just say... "I forgot".
"...wouldn't you say that the system is overly complicated? And that some of that complication is by design?"
It's like any industry thats expanded over time: yes, its complicated, and yes, there are too many middle-men. I wouldn't say that its "by design", because that is giving too much credit for the industry's long term planning skills (the folks at BMG told me in 1997 that "the internet isn't important". A few years later they bought Napster; go figure!). But the industry isn't really that complex if you take the time to reduce your business method to a set of abstracts and formulate a plan which deals with each abstract in turn; this is simply good business practice.
"And in principle there's nothing wrong with having bodies that represent all those parties."
In fact, one of the big problems of the music industry is a lack of a representative body for musicians. Most countries have a musicians union of some kind, but such bodies are useless when venues can replace live music with DJs, and useful (read: profitable*) record contracts are rarer than hen's teeth. In this kind of atmosphere there is no incentive to co-operate. There's always some bimbo willing to put on the skimpies to be a "pop diva", and they're always going to be more pliable than "real" musicians (from a business perspective, who would you rather deal with: Radiohead or some desperate starlet?). Everybody wants to be famous, even of they don't care what for.
"But there are a lot of structures in place just to keep things as they are, even if they're totally contra-productive."
Which is the same as software, car manufacturing, and farming to name but a few. Every industry has companies that seem more determined to destroy the competition than compete; what's your point? But would you care to name those structures? Most of the filters that exist are there to shield the serious media types (the ones who ARE in it for a living, not just "playing rock star") from all the time-wasting dreamers. If Rolling Stone interviewed anyone who asked, they would drown in the crapflood, and lose the readership that is interested in the big names; they won't change their policies unless the industry radically changes, which I don't see happening until absolutely nobody is buying CDs.
"...even if you find out how to avoid the ugly parts of the system, the downside is that you're then outside the system and have to do every goddamn thing yourself."
So the lesson is: either you hire competent management, you learn to be a competent manager yourself, or you go under, just like any other business. Again, what's your point? In my experience, musicians are rarely good managers (even at a personal level), since the creation of music requires a foot in the realm of fantasy; many would rather chew off their own testicles than think in business terms, and that's "shooting one's self in the foot" far more efficiently than even the RIAA can accomplish.
"There's not much of a middle way, and everything seems to involve lawyers."
Again, every business that involves agreements between parties usually involves lawers. Its called "covering your arse", and its standard business practice. Frankly, I am deeply suspicious of anyone who refuses to put things in writing (learned from hard experience, actually). Contracts are a part of every kind of business; learn to deal with it, or give up now.
"t's ironic that such a creative industry is being "led" in such a conservative, uninspiring and cold manner."
It may come as a surprise, but most record company types actually are into music (and many are ex-musicians, although I did once deal with an A&R manager who was completely tone-deaf. Hi, Andrew!), just not the same music you may be into. But its a fact of life that wherever big money is involved, clinical business decisions are, and must, be made; otherwise they end up bankrupt. An endless cycle of bankrupcies would be worse for music than the existing system.
"...people feel the need to cri
With the Internet age, it should be no problem for the artists to sell their music by themselves on their own website or whatever. They could charge, per song, 50 times as much as they'd get from the RIAA for that song, and still be way cheaper for the consumer than by going through the RIAA. What do you think will happen then? When you can buy a perfect digital copy of a song you want directly from a band, know that you are supporting that band (some smart businesslike marketing techniques will inform all the kids out there that this is the best thing to do so the band can afford to make more music for them), and the music will serve as advertising for concerts, merchandise, and other business opportunities.
And how will this all happen? There's only one way: All the artists refuse to work with the RIAA, and demand their copyrights back. Civil disobedience: The artists can sell new copies of the work signed over to the RIAA, without paying the RIAA for it, and when the RIAA sues, all the information will come out in court and on television. That will put the last nail in the RIAA's coffin. Those sons of bitches.
"So, downloaders are "stealing" the product of an individual member, not the RIAA itself, and therefore the RIAA should not be involved in the lawsuit process against said individual?"
That's a deliberate misinterpretation of what I said. In fact, the members of the RIAA have delegated responsibility for protecting copyright to the RIAA. So although it looks like the RIAA should be sending out threatening letters to it's own members it wouldn't do so, since this is technically breach of contract rather than copyright infringement. But any astute observer will notice that copyright infringement cases between RIAA members (and their clients) have never, not once, involved the RIAA directly; it is always company against company or company against artist. Settling intra-industry or contractual disputes is not the RIAA's role.
"Yes, the individual member should have monitored its own bookkeeping and made sure the artists were paid, but isn't the RIAA the representatives of these members, and thus should be looking WITHIN as well as WITHOUT for instances of wrong occurring?"
Not really, since the RIAA is working according to the requests of it's members. Again, ensuring a record company is obeying it's contractual obligations is not the RIAA's job. So, yes, blaming the RIAA really is entirely incorrect, since it overlooks the fact that the record companies do own the copyright to those recordings, and so are not violating copyright at all.
"Is this a one-way street, that they cannot even monitor their own members?"
Yes, it is a one-way street. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, the RIAA is fed by the mainstream industry. I would be very interested to hear an example of any industry advocacy body prosecuting it's own members; I can't think of one, if you can provide an example I would be delighted to hear it.
"...this "system" is extremely complex, and the only ones to truely "know" it are the ones that created it."
First, the system was not suddenly "created", it evolved over the best part of a century, infuenced by technology and laws, so there was no guiding hand responsible (such an idea is laughably naive). Second, any system is as complex or as simple as the level of detail you choose to examine, you don't need to know anything about copyright to read the RIAA's mission statement. Third, understanding the difference between the legal entity that is the RIAA, and the legal entities that are the individual companies is not that difficult to anyone of reasonable intelligence. But of course you are right: ignorant opinion is so much more valid an arguement than fact.
My point still stands: the RIAA is not responsible, it is the fault of the individual companies. The headline of the article is misleading, and should read "RIAA Members Forget to Make Royalty Payments". But that doesn't give us the scope for righteous indignation, does it?
I'm not an RIAA executive (impossible, since I do not happen to live in America), nor do I have any love for the RIAA or its affiliates. I'm just pointing out that this really has nothing to do with the RIAA, per se, just a lack of responsibility on the part of it's members.
If you want to blame somebody for an act, at least blame the right person.
Oh, no, I have been mortally wounded by the rapier-like wit of your reply! I hope I don't lose too much blood before I can respond...
"You didnt' sell any albums."
And you didn't provide any kind of real rebuttal, which shows you're probably under the age of 16, you think you're so 1337 because you downloaded Kazaa Lite, and you don't have a girlfriend because you're a little turd who thinks sarcasm impresses people. Actually, I may be wrong about the "under 16" bit; some people never grow up.
"I know it was the P2P networks that ruined you."
Who said I was ruined? In fact, I outright own a house worth $1.13 million (with nice water views) and I'm not yet 34, but that wasn't paid for by my dealings with the RIAA's affiliates (you can make money from independent music, if you're clever and you work hard).
Your reply is a perfect example of unthinking FUD. The article has nothing to do with P2P, I said nothing about P2P, I was merely pointing out the factual error in the title of the article. It is my opinion that the RIAA & its affiliates are blood-sucking leeches (there, happy now?), but that doesn't alter the fact that the RIAA is not responsible, the individual record companies are.
BTW, if you can work out what albums I have released (since I didn't identify myself this time), then I will admit you are truly 1337, and not just some snot-nosed brat trying (and failing desperately) to be funny.
There a fucking cheating scum, and got off lightly.
Not to mention Dolly has her own theme park, where I'm sure you could at least leave a message.
The proper way to see the P2P'ers is as competition.
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
They have spent the last 3 years now "fighting internet downloading to make sure royalties go to there artists" and sooner or later someone was going to point out that they have thousands of unpaid royalties on the books. By approaching the NYS AG, they are quite nicely sidestepping this and at least not looking quite so much like hypocrites.
Make no mistake, this decision was a win/win for the industry and the State
-- Cheers!
These are just politicians. They might not even be able to find Nebraska.
From http://us.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/04/media.r oyalties.reut/
Music industry attorney Bob Donnelly, whom Spitzer credited with bringing the issue to his attention, was more critical of the labels. "I think there was a lot more money than was disbursed today," said Donnelly, who has represented such artists as jazz giant Ornette Coleman and funk pioneer Bootsy Collins in such royalty disputes. "They've been making interest on this money for a long time."...Donnelly said he originally considered filing class action suits against the labels. "But what we discovered is that every time we found a good plaintiff, the record companies would offer to pay them."