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CRIA Falling Apart?
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently, the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) has been falling apart recently. The biggest blow occurred when 6 major Canadian independent labels quit which was followed by some problems with the Copyright Board. Of course, this is all happening after the whole Sam Bulte incident. The article explains what happened with plenty of links for specific information."
Victory is Ours!
BwahahahahahahahA!!!!!!11
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
We are the listeners!
[nt] lameness filter
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Oh, it's *CRIA*... I thought it was *RIAA* :(
You forgot the question mark.
Canada - we put the
Not the horrid Sam Bulte incident... I remember that made headline news. Couldn't sleep for weeks.
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson
The current situation is just that they want to distance themselves from the bad press of the moment, eh. In a year or so they'll be back and better than ever, the hosers.
Most artists just want to be heard.
Their music should be considered free advertising for their art form, and hope to get enough interest to then go on tour.
It saves them time running around town sticking flyers up on walls.
P2P networks provide the free distribution.
Artists win by selling concert tickets, putting on a great show so people want to come back, and sell t-shirts, posters.
They get 100% of the revenue and greedy corporate bastards have to go find a new job that actually creates products.
Why isn't the old school gone yet?
A tad off topic, but it appears this site is hosted in the good ol' USA. On left bar, they have links pointing to a bunch of bittorrent sites. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the DMCA forbid this? Didn't 2600 get in trouble for providing links to DeCSS? So wouldn't the same apply here? Or maybe they fooled even me and are not in the States at all.
ok ... I believe you, CRIA is falling apart.
CRIA me a river.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
both are merely fronts for the interests of their umbrella group
Progress against any of them is progress against all of them. With any luck, a sufficient defeat in Canada will allow Canada to get a foothold in the world music industry for the near future as the old guard is defeated in a long series of battles.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Now of course lobbying groups with lots of money get lots of stuff organized for themselves, but here it seems like all legislation concerning music-copyright is more or less directly taken over from the record companies. That's like taking all environmental legislation over from either greenpeace or chemical industry.
I think the biggest mistakes are from the government of giving so much one-sided power to industry instead of being a representative of the people as they were actually chosen to be. Yeah, I know, reality is different, but it just still amazes me, maybe I'll get more desillusionized (reality-numbed) as I grow older.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
The current situation is just that they want to distance themselves from the bad press of the moment, eh. In a year or so they'll be back and better than ever, the hosers.
... and those artists tend to be in *favour* of downloads as it increases their exposure.
Probably not, actually. The labels that left, although they do have a few well-known acts, generally have small, relativly unknown artists in their stables
They're simply doing what's best for their business, not what's best for Sony.
A note:
A summary that says "the article explains it" is not very useful to me, or anyone really.
They're simply doing what's best for their business, not what's best for Sony.
This is also why they've dumped the CRIA, but will lobby gov. through the Canadian Independent Record Production Association.
Personally I am glad they did the levy. Makes me happy as I can download to my heart's content. Now if I was someone who used CDs or DVDs for pure backup purposes then yeah I could see how that sucks.
They want to get rid of the private copying levy. Well, hell.. that's been a long time coming.. especially since they were the ones who pushed for it in the first place.
I agree with this sentiment, although for different reasons. Why the hell should I be paying a private (music) copying levy for a CD-R that I buy which will never contain any music?
If this means that Canadians lose the legal right to download music on P2P sites, I think this is a fair compromise. After all, most of the P2P sites are crap nowadays, anyway.. infected with bogus files by the RIAA surrogates and "traffic shaped" by our ISPs.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Because what you said it isn't true, at least not for all musicians. See, you have to separate the love of the art we have from our desirve to live a decent quality of life. Us musicians don't just want to make music for everyone's enjoyment, you see. Some of us want to eat as well!
Many musicians, especially big popular artists of course, want to sell music, and make their living from that. They don't consider their music to be advertising - they may rarely play a gig, they may never want to go on tour, but they may still love making music and want to be able to make a living from it.
Sadly, the people who mask their desire to download music for free from P2P networks claim they're doing it to "fight the man", destroy the evil record labels and so on. That's fine, as far as it goes, but it's an excuse and nothing more. It won't help people like me - I'm a solo musician who plays several instruments, but I'm not in a band. I can record stuff I could never play live. I've enjoyed gigging, but I don't think I'd like to tour really. But why shouldn't I make a living selling music?
If I wanted to sell my music, I'd like people to respect my wishes. If they don't, and I'm relying on making money from my music to live, then I'm fucked and I won't make as much more (if any) because I'll need a job to pay the rent. Which is why I've skipped trying to make a living from music, and instead I'm a games programmer who makes music in his spare time.
Game dev and music blog
But don't you know, that the corporations are people too, at least legally ? And richer and more powerfull people than you could ever hope to be. Virtually immortal, too. So why do you think that the government would side with a short-lived powerless real human being like you against the gods of capitalism ? Especialyl now, when said entities are growing beyond any government by becoming international ?
Or, to put it another way: Your feeble dreams are no match for the power of greed.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Sam Bulte was the inventor of the "Pro-User Zealot" bumper sticker. She is an ardent activist in protecting the inalienable right of Canadians to download music, and banned corparate electoral influence peddling. Note that she did this all in the midst of her meteoric rise to becoming Queen of Canada.
While her rule is now totalitarian and despotic, she is respected for being polite to anyone she is about to have stuffed into a concrete beaver-tail and sunk in the Ottawa canal.
Sure, for some groups the live concert is an integral part of their art form, but for many musicians it's all about the music and for many it's some combination between music and live performance.
...), don't like to tour, or are bad at live performance. Their artform is still worthwhile without the performance element, but without financial reward they might not be able to make their music.
Some musicians can't tour (health, visa, 2nd job, family,
then you aren't wholly within canadian law..
it uploads too.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
...make the Record Indistries suffering end short and quickly.
One, two years of boycotting theyr products, and art
will be free once more again. The other alternative is
that the RecI's death struggle will hurt all of us
with their pestilence of DRM and IP-lawyers...
Consume more Netlabels! *g*
It's incredibly cryptic, the way the links and stories are written. Reminds me of the way that blog comments are arranged in reverse chronological order. Incredibly annoying. To understand it, you need to read the last link you click on first. WTF, people? How about writing for humans?
... and then they built the supercollider.
If I'm not mistaken MC Lars is on Nettwerk Records, one of the 6 that split from the CRIA.
ago.
http://www.phlow.de/netlabels/index.php/Main_Page
http://starfrosch.ch/
ftp://ftp.de.scene.org/pub/music/
Only the former ruling industry hasn't
recongized it yet...
An individual may be short-lived and have very little money in comparison, but the PUBLIC as a whole far outstripes any corporation. In fact, far outstripes ALL corporations, combined.
The media industry is unlike most others, in that it really can't be an off-shore entity. If they don't play nice in your county, the government can remove copyright protections, and instantly kill off the business-model. So, no matter how big the music industry gets, they are still wholly, and quite easily, controlled by the government.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
is this little brouhaha not filtering to lawmakers pondering (more like currently burying) the "digital media consumer right's act" in congress?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
That should be, "Canada Is Falling Apart."
As an organization that represents wealthy companies or groups, the CRIA is just doing what they believe they are being paid to do. They call it "protecting the rights of their members", but "protecting rights" actually translates to "maximizing proffits". They could realy care less about anyone's rights, their job is to make their members richer. There's really nothing wrong with that, it may not be a nice polite way to look at it, but that is their business model and that's ok.
The problem I have with it is how far they will go to further this goal. Most systems are designed to balance opposing groups under "normal" situations. But when you get huge corporations or groups of powerful businessmen with wads of money backing the cause, the human face gets taken off the actions and you end up with a merciless, ruthless drive. With a smaller group, if you try to pull some unfair crap on the public, you get caught, and you get burned. It hurts your reputation and ultimately hurts your cause. This is the limiting factor that makes up for the gaps in the laws and regulations. I suppose you could say the public shames the organization into behaving reasonably.
Large groups like the RIAA and CRIA are big enough that this does not affect them. Pissed off a few hundred thousand people, so what? Does it affect their funding? Not immediately anyway. They still get their dues from the big 20 or so, and the artists they represent, and who are funding them, simply cry "it wasn't ME!" and then cut them another check. Who do they think they're fooling? Unfortunately, that'd be US. And so the injustice just continues. The organization just tries a new trick next month and hopes for better luck sneaking something through. Theere is no effective deterrant, so it just repeats again and again.
The only way to break this cycle is for public awareness to improve. The people that are being affected by these groups needs to recognize that there is no face behind the CRIA, it merely represents the artists who fund it. If you have a problem with what the CRIA is doing, don't complain to or about the CRIA, it won't help. They don't care. Really, they don't. Complain to the artists, the CRIA's power base and support. Tell them how upset you are about what is happening to you, and tell them that you hold THEM responsible. Demand change from the people that can make it happen.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
What needs to occur to cause major U.S. record labels to break away from the RIAA in the same fashion?
I can only see this as a Good Thing(TM), but it seems like the CRIA is a mere shadow of the RIAA in terms of power and influence over legislation and the industry itself.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
The reason that this and other stories don't get play is because the same company who owns record labels, also owns TV and print media. They are not going to write a critical piece to hurt their own business. The best and only way to help relieve this and other obvious problems is to remove any ownersship of media. If you want to own CNN, you must get rid of your other businesses. It won't happen, but it is the only way to balance the goverment and corporate interests. I you control the media, you control the masses
Where the fuck do posts like these come from? Is it like a stegonographic message or something? Do you have to read every 7th word to get it?
How old are you?
Were you trying for the word "disillusioned"?
Humm....I am not sure that I would call the Label that carries one of the most successful and well known Canadian Rock groups of all time Class B.
Anthem records I wouldn't exactly say is a class B Label.
UHHH...RUSH! http://www.rush.com/
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
First the CRIA lobbies FOR the levy, and the personal copy provision. Ok, they get it. At first, a pain because most CDRs are used for data, and no one knew what "mp3" meant.
But its in now. And the CRIA is now lobbying AGAINST it.
This time, they lose. As Bulte shows, the "zealot users" will not tolerate the flip-flop.
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
I run a synth podcast show and because of legal reasons have had many contacts w/ labels (me contacting them for permission, not them busting me) and I can not emphasize how cool the nettwerk label is :
.... as per Nettwerk copyrights, we have never sued anybody and all our music is open source to encourage fans to share it with others and help us promote our Artists. As per those Artists we manage on other labels (Majors), we take issue with those labels claiming that litigating our fans is in our interest, as it clearly is not.
Check out their about page :
Nettwerk Music Group is Canada's leading privately owned record label and artist management company. Nettwerk is responsible for managing some of Canada's biggest artists like Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies and many others. Nettwerk has several offices located around the world including offices in New York, Los Angeles and London; with our main office right next to Granville Island in Vancouver, B.C.
Litigation is destructive, it must stop
Even the smaller indie labels have not taken a stand as strong as Nettwerk has. Nettwerk is indie, but they carry Sarah Maclachlan, Delerium, Avril Lavigne and bands of that size, so they aren't exactly small.
And for this you get maybe $150 to split between four people. That doesn't even pay for a set of strings for my bass, let alone the gas money or food.
And if you don't think that music is playing hard work you clearly haven't got a clue. Most musicians would love to just break even on their habit. After 22 years I haven't even come close.
My book, podcast
The Canadians show how they are smarter and think clearer then Americans.
Turn encryption on, dissallow non-encrypted transfer. Don't use the default BT port.
I get 100k+ no problem for just about anything.
Also, revoke non-anon networks, only onion and...forget the other one.
"Copyright puts culture under the lock and key of a corporation for their own profit, not for the protection of the culture. "
I have copyrights for my artwork and music, and neither have gone anywhere near "a corporation." Unless you count my web host.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Trust me, there really is some good in this world. Nettwerk has been one of the most critical labels of heavy-handed legal tactics. They're funding some RIAA defences, they were one of the first to leave the CIRA, and they aren't just a stable of artists that no one has heard of; Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne.
And they sell mp3s on their site. Not WMAs, not ACCs -- *mp3s*, no DRM.
I'm a cynical bastard, too, but there's actually a few labels out there that get it. Don't sell them short.
Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
Wikipedia has a pretty good background article for those that don't remember.
Stand back!
(pausing)
(waiting)
(in suspense)
(dead din of the silent air)
When are we going to get the "other" Slashdot article on "RIAA is falling"?
Indies, make sure you join CIRAA.
-b
myselfmusic
Copyright, as the money-making machine it is today, did not exist in Mozart's time (at least not in Europe-- the modern conception of copyright stems from UK law). Copyright may have existed informally, but unless I'm mistaken, it was not a part of law. Despite that Mozart make quite a good living from his music. Additionally, it was quite common-- and acceptable-- to compose "variations" on another composer's work. This practice is briefly mentioned in the quasi-fictional movie, Amadeus. But derivative works, though still technically permissible, are not often undertaken due to a threat of lawsuit and, from what I gather, not smiled upon by courts.
But using Mozart's case to support an argument about modern times is pointless anyhow-- in the 18th century, you're talking about sheet music and a vast underclass that has little interest in copying it. Today, we have a huge population with disposible incomes and high-quality recordings that can be distributed at virtually no cost. The dynamics are quite different.
Somebody with mod points, please take a look at the parent article.
"Don't Cria for me Argentina...."
Couldn't resist
In the U.S., copyright laws were supposed to be written to promote the useful arts, but I don't see the incentive for a dead man to create anything. In fact, if someone does manage to create that one lucky hit single and never has to work another day in his life because his copyright, what incentive does he have to create anything else? Copyright should be shortened to a reasonable period that allows artists to earn some measure of income from their works, but encourages them to keep creating. The public is more enriched by an artist that stays creative. And if an artist cannot continue to create, then I understand Wal Mart is looking for stockboys.
Finally, you don't want to judge the fairness of the system based on those rare lucky individuals, but the fact is that copyright laws are engineered specifically for those rare cases. The last extension of copyrights was purchased by Disney, not Joe Sixpack writing folk songs in his garage. Congress could give a shit about 99.9% of all musicians, but they listen religiously to the RIAA. Congress doesn't care about protecting my slashdot posts, but they will defend J.K. Rowling's books to the death.
I really want to hear from artists about what the CRIA and the RIAA are slinging around. In Canada we pay a levy on blank media. This levy is to compensate artists for the copying that occurs. This means, in Canada, I can legally make a copy of my CDs, rip any songs off and build a compilation CD of my own creation, without fear of legal action. This levy also applies to MP3 players and similar devices. But what do the artists think of this? Are they for it? Are they against it? Do they consider it fair? Do they believe it promotes illegal file sharing and the other evil activities the CRIA and the RIAA are blaming on dwindling sales?
Everyone seems to think they know what's best for artists, but we never seem to hear from the artists themselves. The CRIA and the RIAA say they are acting in the best interest for the artists. People in this thread say "artists just want their music heard"....which sounds an awful lot like someone is trying to say that artists don't mind having their hardwork ripped off without getting any form of compensation for it. Come on artists, if any of you read Slashdot, tell me how you really feel about all this!
American style management is not what business management is all about. Stomping, shouting and bullying seems to be the way out for many multinationals and apparently they think everybody must follow their example.
The demise of the CRIA is a similar example of how canadian recording labels were faced to follow american interests rather than representing canadian content and canadian artists.
What's your gripe with AAC? Sure you can add DRM to it (as you can with MP3) but by default it is as open of a standard as MP3.
Never understood why people seem to love MP3 but have a problem with the newer version known as Advanced Audio Codec or AAC.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Late twenties, still naive, damned me! :)
Were you trying for the word "disillusioned"
Yeah, I guess that is the one! But I like my creation as well ;)
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
I understand, but there is something wrong with the levy system.
Even though there is a levy, these corporations still sue people's asses off. So right now, you're paying a levy to pay for the to pay their lawyers to sue people for downloading music, for which these people paid indirectly anyway. Can you still follow me? :) Furthermore, there were plans for putting a levy on harddisks, which would be just so immensly wrong and a technological setback, because it would decrease the amount of hard drive space beople can buy, effectively erasing the advancements to make cheaper and bigger harddrives.
The most important part, however, is that there is often no real control on the institutions that collect the levy, what happens with the money? I think I read that in holland, only a third of this money went to artists, and not per se to all, the administration was a huge mess.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling