Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Supporting Commercial P2P
cgibby98 writes "The AP reports: 'In the last few months, major record labels have signed licensing deals with companies working to field file-swapping services that would block unauthorized files from being traded online.' Most interesting is a service called Peer Impact, which 'can be used to find and purchase tracks from an initial catalog of a half-million songs from all the major labels.... After a user buys a song from Peer Impact, future buyers get it from that member -- or others who have gotten it in the meantime -- instead of from a central server. Users have to pay for each track they download, but sharing songs they've purchased from Peer Impact earns them credits they can spend on the service.'"
Wow--looks like they've found a way to get paid from one customer for using another customer's bandwidth. Oh well...it's good work if you can get it.
So... we pay for the distribution now... the manufacturing has vanished... and still they'll try and DRM it (making less useful than a plain CD) and will probably will charge it at the same or higher rate than CD's.
This isn't a win... it's a lose.
If they drop the prices to reflect that manufacturing and distribution have now been removed... and also to reflect that now we just want the good stuff and not the padded albums... then they might have something.
As long as the prices are low (i'm sure they won't be) and the credits earned for sharing the file are fair, then this sounds like a reasonable compromise.
We get music, legally, and affordably (hopefully). We also have the opportunity to earn credits for using our bandwidth.
They get money, which is all they really want anyway.
Don't Tread on Me
Users have to pay for each track they download, but sharing songs they've purchased from Peer Impact earns them credits they can spend on the service.
And how long will it take until someone figures out a way to manipulate the system to earn the credits without actually sharing? I can see it now--'You have 20,000,000 credits, which is enough to purchase 500,000 songs.'
If the artists aren't going to get any royalties from this, then this is the RIAA committing piracy.
Was there any claim that they wouldn't be receiving the royalties guaranteed them in their contracts? Oh, and most of the time, the artists don't hold the copyrights to their works anyway, they sold them along with their soul in order to get signed to a particular label.
If the RIAA didn't give the artists any royalties due, they would be breaching their contract with the artists, but not committing piracy.
What?
I'm not going to pay a dollar + bandwidth and get only 50 cent in return ;)
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
*ahem* RTFA?
It's a file sharing system meant to both supply legal downloads on a p2p basis and encourage sharing. If you have a song, and someone else sees you have a song and they download it, you get some credits toward the service. It's a clever "social networking" kind of way to get music out there to more people than it otherwise might have reached AND it's an embrace of the legitimate power of p2p.
That said, this isn't exactly an ultimate solution and it certainly doesn't do anything to repair the RIAA's image. Baby steps. Baby steps.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
This service's restrictions will keep it from being a major player, and until the RIAA gets it that no one will change until they open up their restrictions, piracy will always be huge, and the one music store that supports the most popular player will remain the most popular option (and only option for many) for purchasing legal music.
This market needs competition! Be creative, RIAA!
I'd rather be cycling.
50 cent is even less popular in the UK; here, he's only 27 pence.
How is it even possible that the RIAA things this is a good idea?! This is quite possibly the stupid thing I've ever heard of. In fact, I think I've heard this buisiness plan before. Does anyone recall the Scour Network? Basically it was a napster-era general use peer to peer service that got taken down and ressurected as a pay service. Basically, users had to pay to use lame content that they hosted themselves for others to download. You're paying a service to use your own connection for them. The idea of being compensated for this with a points system is laughable. People share music on peer to peer services because they love music and they want everyone to enjoy the songs that they have in their collection. People download songs on peer to peer networks because it's free, convenient, and offers a great selection.
What the RIAA has done is taken the bad parts about legitimate music (paying, poor selection, hassle) and merged them with the downsides of Peer to Peer file sharing (slow download speeds, having to upload on an asymmetrical connection). The rewards system seems to be a new concept but overall, they've taken the downsides of two distribution methods and are sure to fail, as others have in the past using this same exact strategy. Sometimes I wonder if they live in their own little magic world where ideas like this sound less retarded, because that's the only logical explanation I can come up with for the creation of this service.
My cable ISP has something in their TOS that says I can not use my connection for profit (making money for my bandwidth). According to that, there's no way I can use this P2P legally if I get credits for my bandwidth which can be used to purchase things which normally cost a set amount.
Make your computer faster: rm -rf
Since you get "credits" for letting people download from you, the P2P leech problem simply goes away- *everyone* not on dialup is going to want to be a server. The RIAA/record labels will spend close to 0 on bandwidth- a few seed copies and purchase info is all they need.
Presumeably they'll have some way to make sure only good copies stay on the network, thus removing the whole "I can't get the entire album at a decent bitrate, and Track 3 is all messed up" problem so common in current P2P.
If they get their entire catalog out fast, they could also return to the good old days of having a massive variety of stuff to sample from. This is still the problem with iTunes- obscure stuff just doesn't exist yet for whatever reason. Here you dump off one copy of some wierd goth/emo/trance/metal hybrid from Eastfarkistan and you'll get a few people to host it.
Of course, being the major album labels, they'll probably only seed the latest copies of Jessica Simpson and (insert latest dead rapper) at 64 kbit/second while managing to use 1MB/sec of bandwidth for DRM checks, but we'll see.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
1.) Set up service with the downsides of buying music (having to pay, shitty RIAA-only selection)
2.) Match that with the downsides of peer to peer file sharing (having to upload, disorganization, no physical cd)
3.) Slap on some draconian Microsoft DRM for good measure
4.) ???
5.) Chapter 11!
Note: Step 4 may or may not be an earthquake caused by everyone on the planet going "huh?!" at the same time.
Also, I needed a title for the post so I made a random one and now all I can think of is eating babies.
What is really needed is a way to take the RIAA out of the loop and have royalties go directly to the copyright holder (which eventually would be the performer or composer for new works).
Well, which is it, the performer or the composer? What about the producer? The recording engineer? Who's tracking all this data? Who's holding the money? (Please don't tell me it's the lead singer, or the code monkey who set up the torrent...)
There is still a business to the distribution of Art, and although the Internet may have made the process "simpler" to the consumer, the accounting and funds disbursement is still a nightmare. There's a reason, beyond the "Look, Ma, I signed with A&M!" appeal that artists sign away rights to Big Businesses: The Big Businesses handle the big business, and that frees up creators to create, and not balance books, write checks, and lick envelopes all day long.
Do many artists sign away too many rights? Are the labels and publishers too greedy? Inarguably. But artists need some middle-ground choice between being a slave and becoming a CPA (I'm not sure there is any genuine substantive difference between either fate, but you get my drift...)
If you decide you don't actually want more music, you don't need to give them bandwidth. Likewise, if you do, but it just isn't worth giving up some of your precious bandwidth for cheaper music, you don't need to either.
It doesn't sound like a bad deal to me, especially if you can earn your credits by leaving your client open when you're asleep and at work.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The typical situation is that the artist signs with the label and then the work that they produce is actually considered "work-for-hire" and the copyright is owned by the label at that point, which the contract then dictates what the artist receives, etc.
Another typical situation would be that the artist creates the work outside the label. Then the artist holds the copyright; however, they have the transfer their rights to a label in exchange for publicity, publishing, etc. (Not that they have to, but the label won't have it any other way more than likely.)
Copyright actually consists of many rights, which include, inter alia, the exclusive right to:
- reproduce the work
- prepare derivative works
- distribute the work
- perform the work publicly (applies to only certain classes)
- display the work publicly (applies to only certain classes)
It is possible to assign only some of these rights to other individuals, which may be another way that the music industry gets things done. The sad truth is that because of the oligopoly of radio stations held by a few media giants, it is difficult or almost impossible to get anything done with major record labels, who are only interested in screwing artists out of every dime they have.
What?
I think the appropriate term for what the RIAA does to artists is "rape".
What?