Canadian Record Label Fights RIAA Lawsuits

An anonymous reader writes "Nettwerk Music Group, Canada's leading privately owned record label has joined the fight against the RIAA's strategy of individual lawsuits. Nettwerk CEO Terry McBride says 'Suing music fans is not the solution, it's the problem. Litigation is not "artist development." Litigation is a deterrent to creativity and passion and it is hurting the business I love. The current actions of the RIAA are not in my artists' best interests.'"

Comments

Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[gbulmash]

Not sure I'm understanding this one. They're going to pay the legal fees and fines for one person and they've "joined the fight"? I doubt the RIAA will have any problem taking their money. And unless they're going to do this for every American the RIAA sues, I don't see it making a dent in the effect the RIAA's terrorist tactics have.

Paying the legal expenses and fines of one Texas teen isn't joining the fight. It's a publicity stunt. If they want to join the fight, then they should use their clout and cash to take a more substantive swipe at the RIAA than just a tiny, ineffective gesture.

- Greg

Re:Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[Anonymous Coward]

Even one person winning against the RIAA would be a good thing. Since most people cannot afford to fight them, this action is a step in the right direction.

Re:Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[GiantCranes]

Yep, that is joining the fight. It signals whos side that they are on and helps some kid at the same time.

Re:Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[kraada]

Whenever someone stands up to say "No!" you're going to complain because they've only done it once?

This sets a precedent. Not to mention endears me to that company in particular. I may well go get a list of artists under that label and go buy something just to support them. Or send in a donation saying "Thank you."

Perhaps Nettwerk Music Group will make the same offer to anybody accused of downloading their music. Perhaps others will join in.

Also, paying the legal expenses is HUGE. Now they can get a big time lawyer, and not have to worry about how they can afford it. Lawyers are not cheap. This is why most people settle. Are you really going to pay $6000 to a lawyer to maybe win, or $5000 to the RIAA to make them go away?

But now the money is not theirs, they will fight, and I pray they will win. But either way, this was a Really Good Thing.

Re:Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[Master Ben]

Publicity Stunt? No question and thats the idea. It gets publicity to the fact that not everyone in the industry agrees with the RIAA. And even though paying for one person isn't a big deal to the RIAA, the reasons behind it is to the rest of the people.

Re:Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[chrisv]

They're going to pay the legal fees and fines for one person and they've "joined the fight"?

They could very well be testing the water, you know. Not many of the families being sued (sorry, extorted) by the RIAA have the resources backing them to even make it possible to stand up to them without going bankrupt in the process, even if they win. Make the RIAA start losing, you start setting precedent. Start setting precedent, the cases start getting thrown out before there is a trial because there's not anything left to back them up. If you can make them start losing, then it doesn't take a lot to end the whole thing; but it takes someone willing and able to stand up and fight back. Publicity stunt? Certainly. Exactly what's needed? Definately.

Re:Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[malkavian]

The true damage done to the RIAA in this isn't that someone is standing up to them, it's that a record label is standing up to them and saying "You are not representing the best interests of the Artists.".
This is a major broadside to the spin and misdirection campaign they have going (i.e. We sue sharers because they hurt the artists! We act for the artists! We're being the good guy fighting evil!). Now, one of "the fold" has stood out, and actually declared "You are stating you represent us, but in fact, you're acting way out of line and going contrary to our real wishes.".
The crux being, this record label is an agent for an artist mentioned in a case by the RIAA, and yet both the label and the artist are explicit in not wanting the RIAA to go ahead with the action. The RIAA are doing so. Thus they lose the moral high ground they've been claiming so long to the general public, and showing themselves blatantly to NOT be following the wishes of the artists AND their own members. Which really cuts out a fair portion of their reason for being.

Re:Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[kocsonya]

> Paying the legal expenses and fines of one Texas teen isn't joining the fight. It's a publicity
> stunt. If they want to join the fight, then they should use their clout and cash to take a more
> substantive swipe at the RIAA than just a tiny, ineffective gesture.

It is a very big step. RIAA suing a kid is not newsworthy. A Canadian company standing up against
an American organisation to protect an American kid *is* news. Copyright law will not be fixed until
the masses realise how bad the situation is and they start to make noise. Then the politicians realise
that fighting **AA means popularity that means votes. There are always lobby groups who
will grease your palm but you have to be there in the first place and you need voters for that.
The only issue important to a carreer politician is the one that directly affects the votes.

Whether the Canadian company wants to get the "do no evil" image or wants to piss off the RIAA just for fun or
they happen to believe that a fairer copyright system means a less monopolised but more lucrative and dynamic
business environment (for the smaller publishers) is not important. Whatever the reason they stood up against the RIAA,
they did and it's going to be a lot harder to the RIAA to mow them down than a 12 year old kid or a grandma.
While they fight, a lot of people will get enlightened about copyright and that is a Very Good Thing.

Re:Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[brxndxn]

Yes, this ONE event allows them to 'enter the fight.' Assuming, based on your comment, you have zero understanding of legal decisions, I will try to give you an idea of why this specific instance was necessary for this company to enter the fight.

The RIAA is suing person X because person X downloaded songs owned by the RIAA AND by company Y. So, the RIAA is taking unauthorized legal action on behalf of company Y, without the permission of company Y. Company Y feels this is NOT the direction it wants to take with unauthorized downloading and is thus suing the RIAA and also agreeing to pay for person X's legal defenses in the fight against the RIAA.

The court system can only make decisions in existing disputes.. so until there's a proper existing dispute, company Y cannot really get involved.

So yes, company Y is definitely now involved in the 'fight' against the RIAA's heavy-handed legal tactics... Tactics which company Y (and most likely many other smaller labels) do NOT approve.

Re:Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[Anonymous Writer]

Even one person winning against the RIAA would be a good thing.

IANAL but I believe that falls under legal precedence, so once a legal decision is made regarding one case, it is applied to all subsequent cases like it.

Re:Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[geobeck]

You can almost think of it more as an artist collective than a real "label".

You can almost think of it as what a real "label" will become as more artists break away from the coporate megaliths that form the RIAA and embrace distribution networks that let them retain some control over their music, not seem like part of an "evil empire", and make more money while charging their fans less.

This snowball has barely left the top of the hill.

Re:Oh, fer cryin' out loud

[virtualchoirboy]

Did you mean:

Actually, it would smash their entire "doing it for the artist" excuse to bits. And the artists are the real owners of the rights. It would really hurt if all their artists did this to them.

This case isn't the point!

[SMS_Design]

Absolutely. The thing is, nobody has really stood up with a solid legal argument as of yet. The only real legal arguments used against RIAA cases has been "It wasn't me, it was my son" or other weak crap like that. These may work for the individual cases, but they don't really put a dent in the RIAA's case. If Nettwerk does this, they're going to do this with a big lawyer and they are going to battle the issues at the root of the argument. If there is a legal precedent set in court, it will do a lot more damage to the RIAA's campaign against it's own users. In law, precedent is the big battle.

What I don't understand is

[MikeRT]

If piracy is still rampant on P2P networks, and music sales are still down... doesn't that mean that more people are not buying the music that they claim on slashdot and elsewhere that they'd buy to support the band? What is going on with this? If most of the new music is so shitty you cannot buy a CD online for $12-$15 (sorry, most of the time claiming you're forced to pay $20 is bullshit with the internet) then why is piracy still rampant?

Unless... few P2P defenders want to admit that they really have no interest in paying for music that they could otherwise get for free. Look, I despise the RIAA as much as the next guy, but if you're downloading the music of a small band, you're not supporting them. No one will notice that and think "hey this is the next great band" except for maybe the hated RIAA's lawyers if they see a spike in P2P traffic. One of my all time favorite bands, Lacuna Coil, has only combined sold a few hundred thousand copies of their albums, most of which came from Ozzfest 2004, and I fail to see how downloading all of Comalies and their new Karmacode album would help them if I cannot see their shows.

Now that I am out of college, I find myself no longer able to support P2P networks used for this purpose. It's a great file sharing approach that's often spoiled by teens and young adults who do have the money to pay for their music, but won't. The turning point came for me when I saw a few poor metalheads non-chalantly paying $17-$20 at Ozzfest for Comalies, then noticed some of my almost upper class friends in CS had no desire to actually buy Comalies, even though they loved every song on the album.

For every 1 honest P2P user, there are probably 10 who aren't. Don't ever forget that the boom in CD sales with Napster in 1998-2000 corresponded to the dotcom bubble!

Re:What I don't understand is

[DMNT]

What you don't understand is the fact, that the price is not everything. People don't use p2p only because it's cheaper. They use it because they get much better service. Remember the times when people warned other people from using p2p because of the possible virus infections? Now you have to be careful when buying records!

What record companies and RIAA don't get, is the quality of the service together with the available selection. Want yesterdays good music? Don't waste your time going to a music store, someone in the internet has it, and is willing to share.

For some reason, expensive restaurants still exist even though you can grow your own food and/or hunt, no (big) money spent there. So the competition with the free supply of food hasn't killed off restaurants.

Re:What I don't understand is

[m50d]

Unless... few P2P defenders want to admit that they really have no interest in paying for music that they could otherwise get for free.

Quite a lot of it, they don't. Say I download 100 albums and buy 3 of them. That's still a net gain for the record industry, because had I not been able to download anything, that money would have gone on a graphics card instead.

Look, I despise the RIAA as much as the next guy, but if you're downloading the music of a small band, you're not supporting them. No one will notice that and think "hey this is the next great band" except for maybe the hated RIAA's lawyers if they see a spike in P2P traffic.

Maybe not directly. But they will tell friends, raise the band's last.fm visibility (which is how I discovered Lacuna Coil, so that's almost certainly one more customer from rampant piracy), and some of them will buy the songs. Maybe only a small proportion, but a few percent of lots of pirate downloads is still more than 100% of no sales.

Don't ever forget that the boom in CD sales with Napster in 1998-2000 corresponded to the dotcom bubble!

Huh? So successes of websites lead to more CD sales?

Re:What I don't understand is

[weinerdog]

Unless... few P2P defenders want to admit that they really have no interest in paying for music that they could otherwise get for free.

OK, I'll bite. First, I will point out that downloading music via P2P for personal use does not contravene the Canadian Copyright Act or any other Canadian law, so there is no issue of infringing on anyone's proprietary rights. Since the record companies are intent on asserting their rights to the fullest extent of the law (and beyond) I see absolutely no reason to grant them an inch more: if they insist on pursuing their rights to the fullest extent of the law, then I likewise insist on pursuing mine. If they will not decline to assert their considerable rights in full, then I will not give up any of the few rights that I have either.

Second, I have no issue with paying for a copy of recorded music, as long as it provides a good value for money.

Buying CDs is generally a poor value proposition: $20 for one or two tracks I like is not good value or a reasonable price. The music I want is hard to find on CD, meaning that it is a lot of work on my part to track down what I want. Many newer CDs are infected with all kinds of crap that is potentially dangerous and which might make it harder to convert the CD audio into the MP3 format I need to use the music the way I want to. On the plus side, I can get high-quality rips off of a clean CD, but that doesn't offset the other factors. I might buy a CD if the price is low (second hand shops are more reasonable) and it contains enough material I want, but I won't buy a CD at full retail, with DRM, or with unknown/unheard content.

Buying music from ITMS is a bit of a better proposition: 99 cents is more than it should cost, but low enough that I would be willing to pay if I thought a track had a lot of long-term play value. But the selection is mediocre: less than half of what I want is there, and the files are DRM-hobbled, meaning I have to do extra work (and, if we get DMCA-style legislation, break the law) in order to get it into a DRM-free format that gives me the flexibility I want.

Downloading from P2P is a pain: the selection is uneven but, with perseverence, I can find over 90% of what I want. The quality is uneven: a lot of people dont' know how to cleanly rip and encode a track off CD, so a lot of P2P downloads have clicks and scratches and multiple attempts may be required to get a good copy. Download speed is uneven. The ID3 data is sketchy. I have to verify and fill in the data for each track, and manage my own authority system for ensuring that the forms used for artist and band names are consistent. But once all that is done, I have a copy that I can use where I want, when I want, and how I want. The fact that it is free is a bonus but, even considering the large amount of work I have to do myself, it would be worth a certain amount of money to use even the chaotic, mixed-quality P2P systems that exist today. (Are you listening, music industry?)

If some for-profit commercial business could give me a service that would provide me with the same final product as P2P but with better selection, easier searching, and better quality control, I would happily pay a reasonable price for such a service. But there is no way that I will pay for a product that is inferior and less convenient to one that is available for free.

If you are an artist and you want to make a living by selling copies of recorded music, you have to provide a product that people want at a price that provides good value. High-speed Internet connections, data compression technology, and P2P networks have changed what constitutes good value. I would no more pay $20 for a CD today that I would pay $2,000 for a 4.77MHz IBM XT. At one time, that might have been a fair price for a good product, but not anymore. An artist who relies on copyright law to force people to buy, rather than provide a product that people want to buy isn't going to be very successful in the long run.

Re:mnb Re:Why'd......

[christian.elliott]

Nettwerk is Avril's management company. Therefore they are looking out for her interests individually.

I LOVE Nettwerk!

[Eggplant62]

I think what they're doing is commendable, and we all have to start somewhere. Nettwerk is home to many great artists, and Nettwerk has been very generous with their works, people and bands like my favorites, Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Dido, Chantal Kreviazuk, and many more. I've gotten lots of free Sarah McLachlan stuff over the 15 years I've been a fan, so my loyalty toward her and Nettwerk is pretty well cemented in stone. They've always been an independent label who have not exactly toed the RIAA party line.

Re:OH CANADA

[Sj0]

The liberals were completely impotent with 20 more seats and support from the NDP.

The conservatives are in for hell. They can't really form an alliance with any party, and they don't have the position to protect themselves or to maintain legislation which only the conservatives want to push through.

Impotent? Useless? This to me represents the best of all possible worlds with regards to the Conservative Party of Canada in power, or indeed any party.

Nettwerk

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Uses DRM schemes on their CD's. A Delerium CD was one of the few CD's I could not actually rip in Windows (riped beautifully in iTunes for Mac though). Perhaps Nettwerk feels a little more secure in their ability to prevent unwanted distribution, but they are right up their with the RIAA in terms of limiting individual rights when it comes to how a person wants to listen to the music they purchased. Good to know that they won't resort to suing customers for breaking DRM schemes.

Conservatives will bring lawsuits to Canada.

[guidryp]

Thus far we haven't had lawsuits here. You can count on the conservatives to give CRIA the same options as RIAA has in the USA. Conservatives are pretty near the same as the GOP. #1 rule, the most buisness friendly climate possible, and that means friendly to squashing those evil 12 year girls downloading mp3s with massive lawsuits.

The political parties are all have a different ratio in favoring the individual/corporation. The conservatives are farthest to the right and will favor corporations the most over individuals.

I would think this was obvious.

Go Nettwerk!

[Frag-A-Muffin]

I've been reading that this is a PR stunt from a little Canadian label. Well, it may be ... but what you guys are missing is that they DO seem to "Get it"

Visit their site: http://www.nettwerk.com/

Guess what they sell. MP3s!

I for one, am going to be writing them a letter thanking them for understanding that not all their customers are crooks and that they shouldn't be punishing everyone because of a few bad apples.

Nettwerk++